the whole kingdom. My readers too have the satisfaction to find that there is no rank or degrees among them who have not their representative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written cr published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges. It is, methinks, a low and degrading | divisions, not only of this great city, but of idea of that sex, which was created to re fine the joys, and soften the cares of humanity, by the most agreeable participation, to consider them merely as objects of sight. This is abridging them of their natural extent of power, to put them upon a level with their pictures at Kneller's. How much nobler is the contemplation of beauty, heightened by virtue, and commanding our esteem and love, whilst it draws our observation! How faint and spiritless are the charms of a coquette, when compared with the real loveliness of Sophronia's innocence, piety, good-humour, and truth; virtues which add a new softness to her sex, and even beautify her beauty! That agreeableness which must otherwise have appeared no longer in the modest virgin, is now preserved in the tender mother, the prudent friend, and the faithful wife. Colours artfully spread upon canvass may entertain the eye, but not affect the heart; and she who takes no care to add to the natural graces of her person any excelling qualities, may be allowed still to amuse, as a picture, but not to triumph as a beauty.jects for raillery. When Adam is introduced by Milton, describing Eve in Paradise, and relating to the angel the impressions he felt upon seeing her at her first creation, he does not represent her like a Grecian Venus, by her shape or features, but by the lustre of her mind which shone in them, and gave them their power of charming: "Grace was in all her steps, heav'n in her eye, In all her gestures dignity and love!" "Without this irradiating power, the proudest fair-one ought to know, whatever her glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect features are uninformed and dead. I cannot better close this moral, than by a short epitaph written by Ben Jonson with a spirit which nothing could inspire but such an object as I have been describing. "Underneath this stone doth lie 'I am, Sir, your most humble servant, No. 34.] Monday, April 9, 1711. -parcit THE club of which I am a member, is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind. By this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know every thing that passes in the different quarters and I last night sat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could that there were some ladies (but for your comfort, says Will, they are not those of the most wit) that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-show; that some of them were likewise very much surprised, that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of quality, proper sub He was going on when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted at, had done great good in the city, and that all their wives and daughters were the better for them; and further added, that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues and cuckoldoms. 'In short,' says Sir Andrew, 'if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of gene ral use. Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew, that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for satire, and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then showed, by the example of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. But after all,' says he, I think your raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the inns of court; and I do not believe you can show me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular.' My good friend, Sir Roger de Coverly, who had said nothing all this while, began his speech with a Pish! and told us, that he wondered to see so many men of sense. so very serious upon fooleries. Let our good friend,' says he, attack every one that deserves it; I would only advise vou, Mr. Spectator,' applying himself to me, This debate, which was held for the good to take care how you meddle with coun-of mankind, put me in mind of that which try squires. They are the ornaments of the Roman triumvirate were formerly enthe English nation; men of good heads and gaged in for their destruction. Every man sound bodies! and, let me tell you, some at first stood hard for his friend, till they of them take it ill of you, that you mention found that by this means they should spoil fox-hunters with so little respect.' their proscription; and at length, making a sacrifice of all their acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution. Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that point. But by this time I found every subject of my speculations was taken away from me, by one or other of the club: and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his grey hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked. Having thus taken my resolution to march on boldly in the cause of virtue and good sense, and to annoy their adversaries in whatever degree or rank of men they may be found, I shall be deaf for the future to all the remonstrances that shall be made to me on this account. If Punch grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him very freely: if the stage becomes a nursery of folly and impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, if I meet While I was thus musing with myself, with any thing in city, court or country, my worthy friend the clergyman, who, that shocks modesty or good manners, I very luckily for me, was at the club that shall use my utmost endeavours to make night, undertook my cause. He told us, an example of it. I must, however, entreat that he wondered any order of persons every particular person who does me the should think themselves too considerable to honour to be a reader of this paper, never to be advised. That it was not quality, but think himself, or any one of his friends or innocence, which exempted men from re-enemies, aimed at in what is said; for I proof. That vice and folly ought to be at-promise him, never to draw a faulty chatacked wherever they could be met with, racter which does not fit at least a thousand and especially when they were placed in people, or to publish a single paper, that is high and conspicuous stations of life. He not written in the spirit of benevolence, and further added, that my paper would only with a love of mankind. serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure turned into No. 35.] Tuesday, April 10, 1711. ridicule, by the meanness of their conditions and circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the public, by reprehending those vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantas-in which authors are more apt to miscarry tical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my undertaking with cheerfulness, and assured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose praises do honour to the persons on whom they are bestowed. C. Mart. Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est. than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel. It is not an imagination that teems with monsters, a head that is filled with extravagant conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the world with diversions of this nature; and yet, if we look into the productions of The whole club pay a particular defer- several writers, who set up for men of ence to the discourse of this gentleman, and humour, what wild irregular fancies, what are drawn into what he says, as much by unnatural distortions of thought, do we meet the candid ingenuous manner with which with? If they speak nonsense, they believe he delivers himself, as by the strength of they are talking humour, and when they argument and force of reason which he have drawn together a scheme of absurd makes use of. Will Honeycomb imme- inconsistent ideas, they are not able to read diately agreed that what he had said was it over to themselves without laughing. right; and that, for his part, he would not These poor gentlemen endeavour to gain insist upon the quarter which he had de-themselves the reputation of wits and humanded for the ladies. Sir Andrew gave mourists, by such monstrous conceits as alup the city with the same frankness. The most qualify them for Bedlam; not consiTemplar would not stand out, and was fol-dering that humour should always lie under lowed by Sir Roger and the Captain; who the check of reason, and that it requires the all agreed that I should be at liberty to direction of the nicest judgment, by so much carry the war into what quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with criminals in a body, and to assault the vice without hurting the person. the more as it indulges itself in the most boundless freedoms. There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in this sort of compositions, as well as in all other; and a certain regularity of thought which must discover the writer to be a man of sense, at the same time that he appears altogether given up to caprice. For my part, when I read the delirious mirth of an unskilful author, I cannot be so barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man, than to laugh at any thing he writes, conclude him to be altogether spurious an a cheat. The impostor of whom I am speaking descends originally from Falsehood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a son called Frenzy, who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of The deceased Mr. Shadwell, who had which I have been speaking. I shall set himself a great deal of the talent which I down at length the genealogical table of am treating of, represents an empty rake, in | False Humour, and, at the same time, place one of his plays, as very much surprised to under it the genealogy of True Humour, hear one say, that breaking of windows was that the reader may at one view behold not humour; and I question not but several their different pedigrees and relations: English readers will be as much startled to Falsehood. hear me affirm, that many of those raving incoherent pieces, which are often spread among us under odd chimerical titles, are rather the offsprings of a distempered brain than works of humour. It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as Cowley has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory, and by supposing Humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, who married a lady of collateral line called Mirth, by whom he had issue Humour. Humour therefore being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and a solemn habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour and fantastic in his dress; insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as jocular as a Merry-Andrew. But as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh. But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world, to the end that wellmeaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with him. For as True Humour generally looks serious, while every body laughs about him; False Humour is always laughing, whilst every body about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may Nonsense. Truth. I might extend the allegory, by mention ing several of the children of False Humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general, that False Humour differs from the True, as a monkey does from a man. First of all, He is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffooneries. Secondly, He so much delights in mimickry, that it is all one to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or on the contrary, virtue and. wisdom, pain and poverty. Thirdly, He is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, he must be merry where he can, not where he should. Fourthly, Being entirely void of reason, he pursues no point, either of morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the sake of being so. Fifthly, Being incapable of any thing but mock representations, his ridicule is always personal, and aimed at the vicious man, or the writer; not at the vice, or the writing. I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humourists; but as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit, which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits, that infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd. This is the only exception which I shall make to the general rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes, since every honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them when- | No. 36.] Wednesday, April 11, 1711. -Immania monstra PerferimusVirg. Æn. iii. 583. Things the most out of nature we endure. I SHALL not put myself to any farther pains for this day's entertainment, than barely to publish the letters and titles of petitions from the playhouse, with the minutes I have made upon the latter for my conduct in relation to them. opposition to the oracle of Delphos, and doubts not but he shall turn the fortune of Porus, when he personates him. I am desired by the company to inform you, that they submit to your censures, and shall have you in greater veneration than Hercules was of old, if you can drive monsters from the theatre; and think your merit will be as much greater than his, as to convince is more than to conquer. I am, sir, your most obedient servant, T. D.' fit to use fire-arms (as other authors have 'SALMONEUS, of Covent Garden." 'SIR,-When I acquaint you with the great and unexpected vicissitudes of my fortune, I doubt not but I shall obtain your pity and favour. I have for many years past been Thunderer to the playhouse; and have not only made as much noise out of 'Drury-lane, April the 9th. "Upon reading the project which is set the theatre that ever bore that character, the clouds as any predecessor of mine in forth in one of your late papers, of making but also have descended and spoke on the an alliance between all the bulls, bears, stage as the bold Thunderer in The Reelephants, and lions, which are separately hearsal.' When they got me down thus exposed to public view in the cities of Lon-low, they thought fit to degrade me further, don and Westminster; together with the and make me a ghost. I was contented other wonders, shows, and monsters, whereof with this for these two last winters; but they you made respective mention in the said speculation; we, the chief actors of this carry their tyranny still further, and not satisfied that I am banished from above playhouse, met and sat upon the said de- ground, they have given me to understand sign. It is with great delight that we ex- that I am wholly to depart their dominions, pect the execution of this work; and in and taken from me even my subterraorder to contribute to it we have given neous employment. Now, sir, what I dewarning to all our ghosts to get their live-sire of you is, that if your undertaker thinks lihoods where they can, and not to appear among us after day-break of the 16th instant. We are resolved to take this opportunity to part with every thing which does not contribute to the representation of human life; and shall make a free gift of all animated utensils to your projector. The hangings you formerly mentioned are run away; as are likewise a set of chairs, each of which was met upon two legs going through the Rose tavern at two this morning. We hope, sir, you will give proper notice to the town that we are endeavouring at these regulations; and that we intend for the future to show no monsters, but men who are converted into such by their own industry and affectation. If you will please to be at the house to-night, you will see me do my endeavour to show some unnatural appearances which are in vogue among the polite and well-bred. I am to represent, in the character of a fine lady dancing, all the distortions which are frequently taken for graces in mien and gesture. This, sir, is a specimen of the methods we shall take to expose the monsters which come within the notice of a regular theatre; and we desire nothing more gross may be admitted by you Spectators for the future. We have cashiered three companies of theatrical guards, and design our kings shall for the future make love, and sit in council, without an army; and wait only your direction, whether you will have them reinforce king Porus, or join the troops of Macedon. Mr. Pinkethman resolves to consult his pantheon of heathen gods in The petition of all the Devils in the play house in behalf of themselves and families, setting forth their expulsion from thence, with certificates of their good life and conversation, and praying relief. The merits of this petition referred to Mr. Chr. Rich, who made them devils. The petition of the Grave-digger in Hamlet, to command the pioneers in the expedition of Alexander. Granted. The petition of William Bullock, to be Hephestion to Pinkethman the Great. Granted. ADVERTISEMENT. A widow gentlewoman, well born both by father and mother's side, being the daughter of Thomas Prater, Tattle, a family well known in all parts of this kingonce an eminent practitioner in the law, and of Letitia dom, having been reduced by misfortunes to wait on several great persons, and for some time to be a teacher the public, that she hath lately taken a house near at a boarding-school of young ladies, giveth notice to Bloomsbury-square, commodiously situated next the fields, in a good air; where she teaches all sorts of birds and others, to imitate human voices in greater perfec of the loquacious kind, as parrots, starlings, magpies, tion than ever was yet practised. They are not only instructed to pronounce words distinctly, and in a progreat purity and volubility of tongue, together with all per tone and accent, but to speak the language with the fashionable phrases and compliments now in use, either at tea-tables or visiting-days. Those that have airs, and if required, to speak either Italian or French good voices may be taught to sing the newest opera paying something extraordinary above the common rates. They whose friends are not able to pay the full a little book. I found there were several prices, may be taken as half boarders. She teaches such other counterfeit books upon the upper as are designed for the diversion of the public, and to act in enchanted woods on the theatres, by the great. shelves, which were carved in wood, and As she has often observed with much concern how in-served only to fill up the numbers, like decent an education is usually given these innocent creatures, which in some measure is owing to their be- faggots in the muster of a regiment. I was ing placed in rooms next the street, where, to the great Wonderly pleased with such a mixed kind offence of chaste and tender ears, they learn ribaldry, of furniture, as seemed very suitable both obscene songs, and immodest expressions from passengers, and idle people, as also to cry fish and card to the lady and the scholar, and did not matches, with other useless parts of learning to birds know at first whether I should fancy mywho have rich friends, she has fitted up proper and neat self in a grotto or in a library. apartments for them in the back part of her said house; where she suffers none to approach them but herself, and a servant maid who is deaf and dumb, and whom she provided on purpose to prepare their food, and cleanse their cages; having found by long experience, how hard a thing it is for those to keep silence who have the use of speech, and the dangers her scholars are exposed to by the strong impressions that are made by harsh sounds, and vulgar dialects. In short, if they are birds of any parts or capacity, she will undertake to render them so accomplished in the compass of a twelvemonth, that they shall be fit conversation for such ladies as love to choose their friends and companions out of this species. No. 37.] Thursday, April 12, 1711. -Non illa colo calathisve Minervæ Fœmineas assueta manus R. Virg. Æn. vii. 805. Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill'd. Dryden. Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow: Ogleby's Virgil. Dryden's Juvenal. Cassandra. Cleopatra. Astræa. Sir Isaac Newton's Works. The Grand Cyrus; with a pin stuck in Locke on Human Understanding; with a A Spelling Book. A Dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock upon Death. The fifteen comforts of Matrimony. The Academy of Compliments. Tales in Verse, by Mr. Durfey; bound All the Classic Authors in wood. SOME months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into the lady's library, till such time as she was in readiness to receive me. The very sound of a lady's library gave me a great curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colours, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame, that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with the greatest variety of dies. That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of I was taking a catalogue in my pocketsquare, consisting of one of the prettiest book of these, and several other authors, grotesque works that I ever saw, and made when Leonora entered, and upon my preup of scaramouches, lions, monkies, man-senting her with a letter from the knight, darines, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the midst of the room was a small japan table with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff-box made in the shape of Advice to a Daughter. The New Atalantis, with a Key to it. A Prayer-Book: with a bottle of Hun Seneca's Morals. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country dances. 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 beau |