imaginable; they spend their time in heavenly raptures, in constant and frequent devotions, and at proper hours in agreeable conversations.'-'Sir,' said she hastily, 'tell not me of papists, or any of their idolatries.''Well then, madam, consider how many fine ladies live innocently in the eye of the world, and this gay town, in the midst of temptation: there is the witty Mrs. 'W is a virgin of forty-four, Mrs. Ts is thirty-nine, Mrs. L--ce thirty-three; yet you see they laugh, and are gay, at the park, at the play-house, at balls, and at visits; and so much at ease, that all this seems hardly a self-denial.'-' Mr. Bickerstaff,' said she, with some emotion, 'you are an excellent casuist; but the last word destroyed your whole argument; if it is not self-denial, it is no virtue. I presented you with an half-guinea, in hopes not only to have my conscience eased, but my fortune told. Yet'—'Well, Madam,' said I, 'pray of

what age is your husband ?'—' He is,' replied my injured client, fifty; and I have been his wife fifteen years.'' How happened it you never communicated your distress, in all this time, to your friends and relations?' She answered, 'He has been thus but a fortnight.' I am the most serious man in the world to look at, and yet could not forbear laughing out. 'Why, madam, in case of infirmity which proceeds only from age, the law gives no remedy.'-'Sir,' said she, I find you have no more learning than Dr. Case and I am told of a young man, not five and twenty, just come from Oxford, to whom I will

I See the first note on No 10, concerning Mrs. and Miss. A noted practitioner in physic and astrology, who was considered as the successor of Lilly and Safford, and possessed the magical utensils of both.

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communicate this whole matter, and doubt not but he will appear to have seven times more useful and satisfactory knowledge than you and all your boasted family.' Thus I have entirely lost my client: but if this tedious narrative preserves Pastorella 3 from the intended marriage with one twenty years her senior -to save a fine lady, I am contented to have my learning decried, and my predictions bound up with Poor Robin's Almanacs+.

Will's Coffee-house, May 25.

THIS evening was acted The Recruiting Officer, in which Mr. Estcourt's proper sense and observation is what supports the play. There is not, in my humble opinion, the humour hit in Serjeant Kite; but it is adinirably supplied by his action. If I have skill to judge, that man is an excellent actor; but the crowd of the audience are fitter for representations at May-fair, than a theatre-royal. Yet that fair is now broke, as well as the theatre is breaking: but it

3 Pastorella, it appears, from what is said of her here and in No 13, was not much bettered by her conversion from coquetry, related in No 9.

4 First published early in the reign of Charles II.

5 A comedy by Farquhar, who, in the delineation of the characters in it, is said to have had living originals in his eye. Justice Ballance (we are told) was a Mr. Berkley, then recorder of Shrewsbury; Mr. Hill, an inhabitant of the same town, was one of the other justices. Mr. Worthy was a Mr. Owen of Rusason, on the borders of Shropshire; Capt. Plume was Farquhar himself; Melinda was a Miss Harnage of Belsadine, near the Wreken; Sylvia Miss Berkley, daughter of the recorder of Shrewsbury; and the story the author's invention,

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is allowed still to sell animals there. Therefore, if any lady or gentleman have occasion for a tame elephant, let them inquire of Mr. Penkethman, who has one to dispose of at a reasonable rate. The downfal of May-fair has quite sunk the price of this noble creature, as well as of many other curiosities of nature. A tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox; and I am credibly informed, a man may purchase a cat with three legs, for very near the value of one with four. I hear likewise that there is a great desolation among the gentlemen and ladies who were the ornaments of the town, and used to shine in plumes and diadems; the heroes being most of them pressed, and the queens beating hemp. Mrs. Sarabrand, so famous for her ingenious puppet-show, has set up a shop in the Exchange, where she sells her little troop under the term of ‘jointed babies.' I could not but be solicitous to know of her, how she had disposed of that rake-hell Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much scandal, and did not a little contribute to the ruin of the fair. She told me, with a sigh, that, despairing of ever reclaiming him, she would not offer to place him in a civil family, but got him in a post upon a stall in Wapping, where he may be seen from sun-rising to sun-setting, with a glass in one hand, and a pipe in the other, as centry to a brandy-shop. The great revolutions of this nature bring to my mind the distresses of the unfortunate Camilla 3, who has had the ill luck to break before

6 See N° 4, and 188; Spec. No 31, 370, and 455. 7 Mentioned in No 4, note.

8 Chetwood, in his General History of the stage, says (p. 142.) Italian operas, so fashionable at this time, were too much supported by the excellent voice and judgment of

her voice, and to disappear at a time when her beauty was in the height of its bloom. This lady entered so thoroughly into the great characters she acted, that when she had finished her part, she could not think of retrenching her equipage, but would appear in her own lodgings with the same magnificence that she did upon the stage. This greatness of soul had reduced that unhappy princess to an involuntary retirement, where she now passes. her time among the woods and forests, thinking on the crowns and sceptres she has lost, and often humming over in her solitude,

"I was born of royal race,

Yet must wander in disgrace,' &c.

But, for fear of being over-heard, and her quality known, she usually sings it in Italian,

'Nacqui al regno, nacqui al trono ;

E par sono

I venturata pastorella 9.'

Since I have touched upon this subject, I shall communicate to my reader part of a letter I have received from an ingenious friend at Amsterdam, where there is a very noble theatre; though the manner of furnishing it with actors is something peculiar to that

Mrs. Tofts, a mere Englishwoman, who in the part of Camilla, was courted by Nicolini in Italian, without understanding one syllable each other said, or sung; and, on the other hand, Valentini courting amorously, in the same language, a Dutchwoman that committed murder on our good old English with as little understanding as a parrot.' See No 115. and Mrs. Toft's letter from Venice. Spect. No 443. 9 Camilla, an opera, by Owen M'Swiney. 4to. 1706. VOL. I.

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place, and gives us occasion to admire both the politeness and frugality of the people.

My friends have kept me here a week longer than ordinary, to see one of their plays, which was performed last night with great applause. The actors are all of them tradesmen; who, after their day's work is over, earn about a guilder a-night by personating kings and generals. The hero of the tragedy I saw was a journeyman taylor, and his first minister of state a coffee-man. The empress made me think of Parthenope in the Rehearsal; for her mother keeps an alehouse in the suburbs of Amsterdam. When the tragedy was over, they entertained us with a short farce, in which the cobler did his part to a miracle; but, upon inquiry, I found he had really been working at his own trade, and representing on the stage what he acted every day in his shop. The profits of the theatre maintain an hospital; for as here they do not think the profession of an actor the only trade that a man ought to exercise; so they will not allow any body to grow rich in a profession that, in their opinion, so little conduces to the good of the commonwealth. If I am not mistaken, your playhouses in England have done the same thing; for, unless I am misinformed, the hospital at Dulwich was erected and endowed by Mr. Alleyn, a player: and it is also said, a famous she tragedian "has settled her estate, after her death, for the maintenance of decayed wits, who are to be taken in as soon as they grow dull, at whatever time of their life that shall happen.'

10 Edward Alleyn, in 1614, founded an hospital at Dulwich in Surrey, called The College of God's Gift, with a revenue which is estimated at 700l. per annum.

It is thought probable that Mrs. Barry was the person here meant.