tamorphofed into that musical and melancholy bird, is still a doubt among the Lesbians.

ALCEUS, the famous lyric poet, who had for some time been passionately in love with Sappho, arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap upon her account; but hearing that Sappho had been there before him, and that her body could be no where found, he very generoufly lamented her fall, and is faid to have written his hundred and twenty fifth ode ‹upon. that occafion.

I wish this error in our friendship reign'd. CREECH.

TOU very often hear people, after a ftory has been

Y

told with fome entertaining circumstances, tell it over again with particulars that destroy the jeft, but give light into the truth of the narration. This fort of veracity tho' it is impertinent, has fomething amiable in it, becaufe it proceeds from the love of truth, even in frivolous occafions. If fuch honeft amendments do not promife an agreeable companion, they do a fincere friend; for which reafon one fhould allow them fo much of our time, if we fall into their company, as to fet us right in matters that can do us no manner of harm, whether the facts be one way or the other. Lies which are told out of arrogance and oftentation a man should detect in his own defence, because he fhould not be triumphed over; lies which are told out of malice he should expose, both for his own fake and that of the rest of mankind, because every man should rise against

a com

a common enemy: but, the officious liar, many have argued, is to be excufed, because it does fome man good, and no man hurt. The man who made more than ordinary fpeed from a fight in which the Athenians were beaten, and told them they had obtained a complete victory, and put the whole city into the utmoft joy and exultation, was checked by the magiftrates for his falfhood; but excufed himfelf by faying, O Athenians! am I your enemy because I gave ye two happy days? This fellow did to a whole people what an acquaintance of mine does every day he lives in fome eminent degree to particular perfons. He is ever lying people into good humour, and, as Plato faid, it was allowable in phyficians to lye to their patients to keep up their fpirits, I am half doubtful whether my friend's behaviour is not as excufeable. His manner is to exprefs himself furprized at the chearful countenance of a man whom he obferves diffident of himself; and generally by that means makes his lye a truth. He will, as if he did not know any thing of the circumftances, afk one whom he knows at variance with another, what is the meaning that Mr fucha-one, naming his adverfary, does not applaud him with that heartiness which formerly he has heard him? He faid indeed continues he, I would rather have that man for my friend than any man in England; but for an enemy.-This melts the perfon he talks to, who expected nothing but downright rallery from that fide. According as he fees his practi'ces fucceed, he goes to the oppofite party, and tells him, he cannot imagine how it happens that fome people know one another fo little; you spoke with fo much coldness of a gentleman who faid more good of you, than let me tell you, any man living deferves. The fuccefs of one of these incidents was, that the next time that one of the adverfaries fpied the other, he hems after him in the public street, and they must crack a bottle at the next tavern, that used to turn out of the other's way to avoid one-another's eyeThot. He will tell one beauty fhe was commended by ano. ther, nay, he will fay fhe gave the woman he speaks to, the preference in a particular for which she herself is adinired. The pleasanteft confufion imaginable is made through the whole town by my friend's indirect offices; you fhall have a visit returned after half a years abfence, and mutual

railing

railing at each other every day of that time. They meet with a thousand lamentations for fo long a separation, each party naming herself for the greater delinquent, if the other can poffibly be fo good as to forgive her, which she has no reafon in the world, but from the knowledge of her goodness, to hope for. Very often a whole train of railers of each fide tire their horfes in setting matters right, which they have faid during the war between the parties; and a whole circle of acquaintance are put into a thousand pleafing paffions and fentiments, instead of the pangs of anger, envy, detraction and malice.

THE Worft evil I ever obferved this man's falfhood otcafion, has been, that he turned detraction, into flattery. He is well skilled in the manners of the world, and, by overlooking what men really are, he grounds his artifices upon what they have a mind to be. Upon this foundation, if two diftant friends are brought together, and the cement feems to be weak, he never refts till he finds new appearances to take off all remains of ill-will, and that by new misunderstandings they are thoroughly reconciled.

SIR,

TO THE SPECTATOR.

Devonshire, Nov. 14, 1711. HERE arrived in this neighbourhood two days

Tago one of your gay gentlemen of the town, who,

being attended at his entry with a fervant of his own, befides a countryman he had taken up for a guide, excited the curiolity of the village to learn whence and what he might be. The countryman (to whom they applied < as most easy of accefs) knew little more than that the gentleman came from London to travel and see fashions, and was, as he heard fay, a free-thinker: what religion that might be, he could not tell; and for his own part, if they had not told him the man was a free thinker, he 'fhould have gueffed, by his way of talking, he was lit tle better than a heathen; excepting only that he had. been a good gentleman to him, and made him drunk twice in one day, over and above what they had bargained for.

I Do not look upon the fimplicity of this, and feveral • odd inquiries with which I shall trouble you, to be wondered at, much lefs can I think that our youths of fine VOL. III.

X

wit,

wit, and enlarged understandings, have any reafon to " laugh. There is no neceffity that every fquire in Great Britain fhould know what the word free-thinker ftands for; but it were much to be wished, that they who value themfelves upon that conceited title were a little better inftructed what it ought to stand for; and that they would not perfuade themselves a man is really and truly a 'free-thinker in any tolerable sense, merely by virtue of his being an Atheist, or an infidel of any other diftinction. 'It may be doubted with good reafon, whether there ever was in nature a more abject, flavith, and bigotted gene ration than the tribe of Beaux Efprits, at present so prevailing in this island. Their pretention to be free-thinkers, is no other than rakes have to be free-livers, and favages to be free-men; that is, they can think whatever they have a mind to, and give themselves up to whatever conceit the extravagancy of their inclination, or their fancy, fhall fuggeft; they can think as wildly as they talk and " act, and will not endure that their wit should be controul-. ed by fuch formal things as decency and common fenfe: deduction, coherence, confiftency, and all the rules of reason they accordingly difdain, as too precife and mechanical for inen of a liberal education.

THIS, as far as I could ever learn from their writings, or my own obfervation, is a true account of a British free-thinker. Our vifitant here, who gave occafion to this paper, has brought with him a new fyftem of com " mon fenfe, the particulars of which I am not yet acquainted with, but will lofe no opportunity of informing myself whether it contain any thing worth Mr SPECTA TOR'S notice. In the mean time, Sir, I cannot but think it would be for the good of mankind, if you would take this fubject into your own confideration, and convince the hopeful youth of our nation, that licentiousnefs is not freedom; or, if fuch a paradox will not be understood, that a prejudice towards Atheism is not impartiality.

I am, SIR,

Your most humble fervant,

T

PHILONOUS.

N° 235

TH

ROSCOMMON.

HERE is nothing which lies more within the province of a Spectator than public fhows and diverfions; and as, among thefe, there are none which can pretend to vie with thofe elegant entertainments that are exhibited in our theatres, I think it particularly incumbent on me, to take notice of every thing that is remarkable in foch numerous and refined affemblies.

IT is obferved, that of late years there has been a certain perfon in the upper gallery of the play-houfe, who, when he is pleafed with any thing that is acted upon the ftage, expreffes his approbation by a loud knock upon the benches or the wainscot, which may be heard over the whole theatre. This perfon is commonly known by the name of trunk-maker in the upper-gallery. Whether it be, that the blow he gives on thefe occafions refembles that which is often heard in the fhops of fuch artifans, or that he was fupposed to have been a real trunk-inaker, who, after the finishing of his day's work, was used to unbend his mind at these public diverfions with his hammer in his hand, I cannot certainly tell. There are fome, I know, who have been foolish enough to imagine it is a fpirit which haunts the upper gallery, and from time to time makes thofe ftrange noifes; and the rather because he is obferved to be louder than ordinary every time that the ghost of Hamlet appears. Others have reported, that it is a dumb man, who has chofen this way of uttering himself when he is tranfported with any thing, he fees or hears. Others will have it to be the play houfe thunderer, that exerts himself after this manner in the upper gallery, when he has nothing to do upon the roof.