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Spectator, I write this to you thus in haste, | markable for impudence than wit, there to tell you I am so very much at ease here that I know nothing but joy; and I will not return, but leave you in England to hiss all merit of your own growth off the stage. I know, sir, you were always my admirer, and therefore I am yours, CAMILLA. 'P. S. I am ten times better dressed than ever I was in England.'

are yet some remaining, who pass with the giddy part of mankind for sufficient sharers of the latter, who have nothing but the former qualification to recommend them. Another timely animadversion is absolutely necessary: be pleased, therefore, once for is neither mirth nor good humour in hootall, to let these gentlemen know, that there ing a young fellow out of countenance; nor MR. SPECTATOR,-The project in yours that it will ever constitute a wit, to conclude of the 11th instant, of furthering the cor- a tart piece of buffoonery with a "What respondence and knowledge of that con- makes you blush?" Pray please to inform siderable part of mankind, the trading them again, that to speak what they know world, cannot but be highly commendable. is shocking, proceeds from ill-nature and Good lectures to young traders may have sterility of brain; especially when the subvery good effects on their conduct; but be- ject will not admit of raillery, and their ware you propagate no false notions of discourse has no pretension to satire but trade: let none of your correspondents im- what is in their design to disoblige. I pose on the world by putting forth base should be very glad too if you would take methods in a good light, and glazing them notice, that a daily repetition of the same over with improper terms. Iwould have overbearing insolence is yet more insupno means of profit set for copies to others, portable, and a confirmation of very exbut such as are laudable in themselves. traordinary dulness. The sudden publicaLet not noise be called industry, nor impu- tion of this may have an effect upon a dence courage. Let not good fortune be notorious offender of this kind whose reforimposed on the world for good manage-mation would redound very much to the ment, nor poverty be called folly: impute satisfaction and quiet of your most humble not always bankruptcy to extravagance, nor an estate to foresight. Niggardliness is not good husbandry, nor generosity profusion.

servant,
T.

F. B.'

No. 444.] Wednesday, July 30, 1712.

Paturiunt montes

The mountain labours.*

Hor. Ars Poet. v. 139.

'Honestus is a well-meaning and judicious trader, hath substantial goods, and trades with his own stock, husbands his money to the best advantage, without taking all the advantages of the necessities Ir gives me much despair in the design of his workmen, or grinding the face of the of reforming the world by my speculations, poor. Fortunatus is stocked with igno- when I find there always arise, from one gerance, and consequently with self-opinion; neration to another, successive cheats and the quality of his goods cannot but be suit-bubbles, as naturally as beasts of prey, and able to that of his judgment. Honestus pleases discerning people, and keeps their custom by good usage; makes modest profit by modest means, to the decent support of his family; while Fortunatus, blustering always, pushes on, promising much and performing little; with obsequiousness of fensive to people of sense, strikes at all, catches much the greater part, and raises a considerable fortune by imposition on others, to the discouragement and ruin of those who trade fair in the same way.

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those which are to be their food. There is hardly a man in the world, one would think, so ignorant, as not to know that the ordinary quack-doctors who publish their great abilities in little brown billets, distributed to all that pass by, are to a man impostors and murderers; yet such is the credulity of the vulgar, and the impudence of those professors, that the affair still goes on, and new promises, of what was never done before, are made every day. What aggravates the jest is, that even this promise has been made as long as the memory of man can trace it, yet nothing performed, and yet still prevails. As I was passing along to-day, a paper given into my hand by a fellow without a nose, tells us as follows what good news is come to town, to wit, that there is now a certain cure for the French disease, by a gentleman just come

from his travels.

'In Russel-court, over-against the Cannon ball, at the Surgeon's-arms, in Drury lane, is lately come from his travels, a

* Former motto:

Quid dignum tento feret hic promissor hiatu.-Hor.
Great cry and little wool.-English Proverb.

surgeon who hath practised surgery and timony of some people that has been physic both by sea and land, these twenty-thirty years lame.' When I received my four years. He (by the blessing) cures the paper, a sagacious fellow took one at the yellow jaundice, green-sickness, scurvy, dropsy, surfeits, long sea-voyages, campaigns, and women's miscarriages, lyingin, &c. as some people that has been lame these thirty years can testify; in short, he cureth all diseases incident to men, women, or children.'

same time and read till he came to the thirty years' confinement of his friends, and went off very well convinced of the doctor's sufficiency. You have many of those prodigious persons, who have had some extraordinary accident at their birth, or a great disaster in some part of their lives. If a man could be so indolent as to look Any thing, however foreign from the busiupon this havoc of the human species, ness the people want of you, will convince which is made by vice and ignorance, it them of your ability in that you profess. would be a good ridiculous work to com- There is a doctor in Mouse-Alley, near ment upon the declaration of this accom- Wapping, who sets up for curing cataplished traveller. There is something racts, upon the credit of having, as his bill unaccountably taking among the vulgar in sets forth, lost an eye in the emperor's serthose who come from a great way off. Ig-vice. His patients come in upon this, and norant people of quality, as many there he shows his muster-roll, which confirms are of such, doat excessively this way; that he was in his imperial majesty's many instances of which every man will suggest to himself, without my enumeration of them. The ignorants of lower order, who cannot, like the upper ones, be profuse of their money to those recommended by coming from a distance, are no less complaisant than the others, for they venture their lives from the same admiration.

The doctor is lately come from his travels, and has practised both by sea and land,' and therefore cures the green-sickness, long sea-voyages, campaigns, and lyings-in. Both by sea and land!-I will not answer for the distempers called seavoyages and campaigns; but I dare say those of green-sickness and lying-in might be as well taken care of if the doctor staid ashore. But the art of managing mankind is only to make them stare a little, to keep up their astonishment, to let nothing be familiar to them, but ever have something in their sleeve, in which they must think you are deeper than they are. There is an ingenious fellow, a barber of my acquaintance, who, besides his broken fiddle and a dried sea-monster, has a twined-cord, strained with two nails at each end, over his window, and the words 'rainy, dry, wet,' and so forth, written to denote the weather, according to the rising or falling of the cord. We very great scholars are not apt to wonder at this; but I observed a very honest fellow, a chance customer, who sat in the chair before me to be shaved, fix his eye upon this miraculous performance during the operation upon his chin and face. When those and his head also were cleared of all incumbrances and excrescences, he looked at the fish, then at the fiddle, still grubbing in his pockets, and casting his eye again at the twine, and the words writ on each side; then altered his mind as to farthings, and gave my friend a silver sixpence. The business, as I said, is to keep up the amazement; and if my friend had had only the skeleton and kit, he must have been contented with a less payment. But the doctor we were talking of adds to his long voyages the tes

troops; and he puts out their eyes with great success. Who would believe that a man should be a doctor for the cure of bursten children, by declaring that his father and grandfather were both bursten? But Charles Ingolston, next door to the Harp in Barbican, has made a pretty penny by that asservation. The generality go upon their first conception, and think no farther; all the rest is granted. They take it, that there is something uncommon in you, and give you credit for the rest. You may be sure it is upon that I go, when sometimes, let it be to the purpose or not, I keep a Latin sentence in my front; and I was not a little pleased, when I observed one of my readers say, casting his eye upon my twentieth paper, More Latin still? What a prodigious scholar is this man!' But as I have taken much liberty with this learned doctor, I must make up all I have said by repeating what he seems to be in earnest in, and honestly promises to those who will not receive him as a great manto wit, That from eight to twelve, and from two to six, he attends, for the good the public, to bleed for three pence.' T.

of

No. 445.] Thursday, July 31, 1712.
Tanti non es, ais. Sapis, Luperce.
Mart, Epig. 118. I. 1. v. ult.
You say, Lupercus, what I write
I'nt worth so much: you're in the right.
THIS is the day on which many eminent
authors will probably publish their last
words. I am afraid that few of our weekly
historians, who are men that above all others
delight in war, will be able to subsist under
the weight of a stamp, and an approach
ing peace. A sheet of blank paper that
must have this new imprimatur clapt upon

August 1, 1712, the stamp duty here alluded to, took
place, and every single half-sheet paid a half-penny to
the queen. 'Have you seen the red stamp? Methinks
the stamping is worth a half-penny. The Observator
is fallen; the Medleys are jumbled together with the
keeps up and doubles its price.
flying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick. The Spectator

Swift's Works, cr. 8vo. vol. xix. p. 173.

it, before it is qualified to communicate any | malcontentedness, which I am resolved thing to the public, will make its way in that none shall ever justly upbraid me with. the world but very heavily. In short, the No, I shall glory in contributing my utmost necessity of carrying a stamp, and the improbability of notifying a bloody battle, will, I am afraid, both concur to the sinking of those thin folios, which have every other day retailed to us the history of Europe for several years last past. A facetious friend of mine, who loves a pun, calls this present mortality among authors, "The fall of the leaf.'

I remember, upon Mr. Baxter's death, there was published a sheet of very good sayings, inscribed, 'The last words of Mr. Baxter.' The title sold so great a number of these papers, that about a week after there came out a second sheet, inscribed, 'More last words of Mr. Baxter.' In the same manner I have reason to think that several ingenious writers, who have taken their leave of the public, in farewell papers, will not give over so, but intend to appear again, though perhaps under another form, and with a different title. Be that as it will, it is my business, in this place, to give an account of my own intentions, and to acquaint my reader with the motives by which I act, in this great crisis of the republic of letters.

I have been long debating in my own heart, whether I should throw up my pen as an author that is cashiered by the act of parliament which is to operate within this four-and-twenty hours, or whether I should still persist in laying my speculations, from day to day, before the public. The argument which prevails with me most on the first side of the question is, that I am informed by my bookseller he must raise the price of every single paper to two pence, or that he shall not be able to pay the duty of it. Now, as I am very desirous my readers should have their learning as cheap as possible, it is with great difficulty that I comply with him in this particular.

However, upon laying my reasons together in the balance, I find that those who plead for the continuance of this work, have much the greater weight. For in the first place, in recompence for the expense to which this will put my readers, it is to be hoped they may receive from every paper so much instruction as will be a very good equivalent. And, in order to this, I would not advise any one to take it in, who, after the perusal of it, does not find himself two pence the wiser, or the better man for it, or who, upon examination, does not believe that he has had two-penny worth of mirth or instruction for his money.

But I must confess there is another motive which prevails with me more than the former. I consider that the tax on paper was given for the support of the government; and as I have enemies who are apt to pervert every thing I do or say, I fear they would ascribe the laying down my paper, on such an occasion, to a spirit of

to the public weal; and, if my country receives five or six pounds a day by my labours, I shall be very well pleased to find myself so useful a member. It is a received maxim, that no honest man should enrich himself by methods that are prejudicial to the community in which he lives; and by the same rule I think we may pronounce the person to deserve very well of his countrymen, whose labours bring more into the public coffers than into his own pocket.

Since I have mentioned the word enemies, I must explain myself so far as to acquaint my reader, that I mean only the insignificant party zealots on both sides; men of such poor narrow souls, that they are not capable of thinking on any thing but with an eye to whig or tory. During the course of this paper, I have been accused by these despicable wretches of trimming, time-serving, personal reflection, secret satire, and the like. Now, though in these my compositions it is visible to any reader of common sense that I consider nothing but my subject, which is always of an indifferent nature, how it is possible for me to write so clear of party, as not to lie open to the censures of those who will be applying every sentence, and finding out persons and things in it, which it has no regard to?

Several paltry scribblers and declaimers have done me the honour to be dull upon me in reflections of this nature; but, notwithstanding my name has been sometimes traduced by this contemptible tribe of men, I have hitherto avoided all animadversions upon them. The truth of it is, I am afraid of making them appear considerable by taking notice of them: for they are like those imperceptible insects which are discovered by the microscope, and cannot be made the subject of observation without being magnified.

Having mentioned those few who have shown themselves the enemies of this paper, I should be very ungrateful to the public, did I not at the same time testify my gratitude to those who are its friends, in which number I may reckon many of the most distinguished persons, of all conditions, parties, and professions, in the isle of Great Britain. I am not so vain as to think approbation is so much due to the performance as to the design. There is, and ever will be, justice enough in the world to afford patronage and protection for those who endeavour to advance truth and virtue, without regard to the passions and prejudices of any particular cause or faction. If I have any other merit in me it is that I have new pointed all the batteries of ridicule. They have been generally planted against persons who have appeared serious rather than absurd: or at best, have aimed rather at what is unfashionable than what is vicious. For my own part, I have en

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SINCE two or three writers of comedy, who are living, have taken their farewell of the stage, those who succeed them, finding themselves incapable of rising up to their wit, humour, and good sense, have only imitated them in some of those loose unguarded strokes, in which they complied with the corrupt taste of the more vicious part of their audience. When persons of a low genius attempt this kind of writing, they know no difference between being merry and being lewd. It is with an eye to some of these degenerate compositions that I have written the following discourse. Were our English stage but half so virtuous as that of the Greeks and Romans, we should quickly see the influence of it in the behaviour of all the politer part of mankind. It would not be fashionable to ridicule religion; or its professors; the man of pleasure would not be the complete gentleman; vanity would be out of countenance; and every quality which is ornamental to human nature would meet with that esteem which is due to it.

If the English stage were under the same regulations the Athenian was formerly, it would have the same effect that had, in recommending the religion, the government, and public worship of its country. Were our plays subject to proper inspections and imitations, we might not only pass away several of our vacant hours in the highest entertainments, but should always rise from them wiser and better than we sat down to them.

It is one of the most unaccountable things in our age, that the lewdness of our theatre should be so much complained of, so well exposed, and so little redressed. It is to be hoped, that some time or other we may be at leisure to restrain the licentiousness of the theatre, and make it contribute its assistance to the advancement of morality, and to the reformation of the age. As matters stand at present, multitudes are shut out from this noble diversion, by reason of those abuses and corruptions that accompany it. A father is often afraid that his daughter should be ruined by those entertainments, which were invented for the accomplishment and refining of human nature. The Athenian and Roman plays were written with such a regard to morality,

that Socrates used to frequent the one, and Cicero the other.

It happened once, indeed, that Cato dropped into the Roman theatre when the Floralia were to be represented; and as, in that performance, which was a kind of religious ceremony, there were several indecent parts to be acted, the people refused to see them whilst Cato was present. Martial, on this hint, made the following epigram, which we must suppose was ap plied to some grave friend of his, that had been accidentally present at some such entertainment:

Epig. 3. 1.

'Nosses jocosa dulce cum sacrum Floræ,
Festosque lusus, et licentium vulgi,
Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti?
An ideo tantum veneras, ut exires?'
Why dost thou come, great censor of thy age,
To see the loose diversions of the stage?
With awful countenance, and brow severe,
What in the name of goodness dost thou here?
See the mixt crowd! how giddy, lewd, and vain!
Didst thou come in but to go out again?

An accident of this nature might happen once in an age among the Greeks and Romans; but they were too wise and good to let the constant nightly entertainment be of such a nature, that people of the most sense and virtue could not be at it. Whatever vices are represented upon the stage, they ought to be so marked and branded by the poet, as not to appear either laudable or amiable in the person who is tainted with them. But if we look into the English comedies above-mentioned, we would think they were formed upon a quite contrary maxim, and that this rule, though it held good upon the heathen stage, was not to be regarded in christian theatres. There is another rule likewise, which was observed by authors of antiquity; and which these modern geniuses have no regard to, and that was, never to choose an improper subject for ridicule. Now a subject is improper for ridicule, if it is apt to stir up horror and commiseration rather than laughter. For this reason, we do not find any comedy, in so polite an author as Terence, raised upon the violations of the marriage-bed. The falsehood of the wife or husband has given occasion to noble tragedies; but a Scipio and Lelius would have looked upon incest or murder to have been as proper subjects for comedy. On the contrary, cuckoldom is the basis of most of our modern plays. If an alderman appears upon the stage, you may be sure it is in order to be cuckolded. A husband that is a little grave or elderly, generally meets with the same fate. Knights and baronets, country 'squires, and justices of the quorum, come up to town for no other purpose. I have seen poor Dogget cuckolded in all these capacities. In short, our English writers are as frequently severe upon this innocent unhappy creature, commonly known by the name of a cuckold, as the ancient comic writers were upon an eating parasite, or a vain-glorious soldier.

At the same time the poet so contrives

No. 447.]

THE SPECTATOR.

matters, that the two criminals are the fa- | served, may lead us into very useful rules vourites of the audience. We sit still, and of life. What I shall here take notice of in wish well to them through the whole play, are pleased when they meet with proper opportunities, and out of humour when they are disappointed. The truth of it is, the accomplished gentleman upon the English stage, is the person that is familiar with other men's wives, and indifferent to his own; as the fine woman is generally a composition of sprightliness and falsehood. I do not know whether it proceeds from barrenness of invention, depravation of manners, or ignorance of mankind, but I have often wondered that our ordinary poets cannot frame to themselves the idea of a fine man who is not a whore-master, or a fine woman that is not a jilt.

I have sometimes thought of compiling a system of ethicks out of the writings of those corrupt poets under the title of Stage Morality. But I have been diverted from this thought by a project which has been executed by an ingenious gentleman of my acquaintance. He has composed, it seems, the history of a young fellow who has taken all his notions of the world from the stage, and who has directed himself in every circumstance of his life and conversation, by the maxims and examples of the fine gentleman in English comedies. If I can prevail upon him to give me a copy of this new-fashioned novel, I will bestow on it a place in my works, and question not but it may have as good an effect upon the drama as Don Quixote had upon romance. C.

No. 447.] Saturday, August 2, 1712.

Φημι πολυχρονίην μελέτην εμεναι, φιλε· και δη
Ταυτην ανθρωποισι τελευτώσαν φύσιν είναι.
Long exercise, my friend, inures the mind;
And what we once dislik'd we pleasing find.

custom, is its wonderful efficacy in making
every thing pleasant to us. A person who
is addicted to play or gaming, though he
took but little delight in it at first, by de-
grees contracts so strong an inclination to-
wards it, and gives himself up so entirely
to it, that it seems the only end of his being.
The love of a retired or busy life will grow
upon a man insensibly, as he is conversant
in the one or the other, till he is utterly
unqualified for relishing that to which he
has been for some time disused. Nay, a
man may smoke, or drink, or take snuff,
till he is unable to pass away his time with-
out it; not to mention how our delight in
any particular study, art, or science, rises
and improves, in proportion to the applica-
tion which we bestow upon it. Thus, what
was at first an exercise becomes at length
an entertainment. Our employments are
changed into our diversions. The mind
grows fond of those actions she is accus-
tomed to, and is drawn with reluctancy
from those paths in which she has been
used to walk.

Not only such actions as were at first indifferent to us, but even such as are painful, will by custom and practice become pleasant. Sir Francis Bacon observes, in his Natural Philosophy, that our taste is never pleased better than with those things which at first created disgust in it. He gives particular instances, of claret, coffee, and other liquors, which the palate seldom approves upon the first taste; but, when it has once got a relish of them, generally retains it for life. The mind is constituted after the same manner, and after having habituated herself to any particular exercise or employment, not only loses her first aversion towards it, but conceives a certain fondness and affection for it. I have heard one of the greatest geniuses this age has produced,* THERE is not a common saying which who had been trained up in all the polite has a better turn of sense in it, than what studies of antiquity, assure me, upon his we often hear in the mouths of the vulgar, being obliged to search into several rolls that 'custom is a second nature.' It is in- and records, that notwithstanding such an deed able to form the man anew, and to employment was at first very dry and irkgive him inclinations and capacities alto- some to him, he at last took an incredible gether different from those he was born pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the with. Dr. Plot, in his History of Stafford-reading of Virgil or Cicero. The reader shire, tells us of an idiot that, chancing to live within the sound of a clock, and always amusing himself with counting the hour of the day whenever the clock struck, the clock being spoiled by accident, the idiot continued to strike and count the hour without the help of it, in the same manner as he had done when it was entire. Though I dare not vouch for the truth of this story, it is very certain that custom has a mechanical effect upon the body at the same time that it has a very extraordinary influence upon the mind.

I shall in this paper consider one very remarkable effect which custom has upon human nature, and which, if rightly obVOL. II.

24

will observe, that I have not here considered custom as it makes things easy, but as it renders them delightful; and though others have often made the same reflections, it is possible they may not have drawn those uses from it, with which I intend to fill the remaining part of this paper.

If we consider attentively this property of human nature, it may instruct us in very fine moralities. In the first place, I would have no man discouraged with that kind of life, or series of action, in which the choice of others or his own necessities may have engaged him. It may, perhaps, be very

* Dr. Atterbury.

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