or petticoat, are standing topics. In short, they consider only the drapery of the species, and never, cast away a thought on those ornaments of the mind that make persons illustrious in themselves, and useful to others. When women are thus perpetually dazzling one another's imaginations, and filing their heads with nothing but colours, it is no wonder that they are more attentive to the supertrial 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 ribbands, silver and gold galloons, with the like glittering gewgaws, are so many lures to women of weak minds and low educations, and, when artificially displayed, are able to fetch down the most airy Coquette from the wildest of her flights and rambles. True Happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise: it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions: it loves shade and soliade, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows; in short, it feels every thing it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, False Happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive any satisfaction from the applauses which she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theatres and assemblies, and has no existence but when she is looked upon. Aurelia, though a woman of great quality, delights in the privacy of a country life, and passes away a great part of her time in her own walks and gardens. Her husband, who is her bosom friend and companion in her solitudes, has been in love with her ever since he knew her. They both abound with good sense, consummate virtue, and a mutual esteem; and are a perpetual entertainment to one another. Their family is under so regular an economy, in its hours of devotion and repast, employment and diversion, that it looks like a little commonwealth within itself. They siten go into company, that they may return with the greater delight to one another; and sometimes live in town, not to enjoy it so properly, as to Tow weary of it, that they may renew in themselves the relish of a country life. By this means they are happy in each other, beloved by their Children, adored by their servants, and are become the envy, or rather the delight, of all that know them. How different to this is the life of Fulvia! she enders her husband as her steward, and looks pon discretion and good housewifery as little doBestic virtues, unbecoming a woman of quality. She thinks life lost in her own family, and fancies herself out of the world when she is not in the , the playhouse, or the drawing-room. She lives in a perpetual motion of body and restlessnes of thought, and is never easy in any one place, when she thinks there is more company in another. The missing of an opera the first night, would be are afflicting to her than the death of a child. She paties all the valuable part of her own sex, and calls every woman of a prudent, modest, and retired life, a poor-spirited, unpolished creature. What a mortification would it be to Fulvia, if she knew that her setting herself to view, is but exing herself, and that she grows contemptible by being conspicuous! I cannot conclude my paper without observing, that Virgil has very finely touched upon this female passion for dress and show, in the character of Camilla; who, though she seems to have shaken off all the other weaknesses of her sex, is still described as a woman in this particular. The poet tells us, that, after having made a great slaughter of the enemy, she unfortunately cast her eye on a Trojan, who wore an embroidered tunic, a beautiful coat of mail, with a mantle of the finest purple. A golden bow,' says he, hung upon his shoulder; his garment was buckled with a golden clasp; and his head covered with an helmet of the same shining metal.' The Amazon immediately singled out this well-dressed warrior, being seized with a woman's longing for the pretty trappings that he was adorned with: I HAVE received a letter, desiring me to be very satirical upon the little muff that is now in fashion; another informs me of a pair of silver garters buckled below the knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow Coffee-house in Fleet-Street; a third sends me an heavy complaint against fringed gloves. To be brief, there is scare an ornament of either sex which one or the other of my correspondents has not inveighed against with some bitterness, and recommended to my observation. I must, therefore, once for all, inform my readers, that it is not my intention to sink the dignity of this my paper with reflections upon red-heels or top-knots, but rather to enter into the passions of mankind, and to correct those depraved sentiments that give birth to all those little extravagancies which appear in their outward dress and behaviour. Foppish and fantastic ornament are only indications of vice, not criminal in themselves. Extinguish vanity in the mind, and you naturally retrench the little superfluities of garniture and equipage. The blossoms will fall of themselves when the root that nourished them is destroyed. I shall therefore, as I have said, apply my remedies to the first seeds and principles of an affected dress, without descending to the dress itself; though at the same time I must own, that I have thoughts of creating an officer under me, to be entitled, The Censor of Small Wares, and of allotting him one day in the week for the execution of such his office. An operator of this nature might act under me, with the same regard as a surgeon to a physician; the one might be employed in healing those blotches and tumours which break out in the body, while the other is sweetening the blood, and rectifying the constitution. To speak truly, the young people of both sexes are so wonderfully apt to shoot out into long swords or sweeping trains, bushy head-dresses, or full-bottomed periwigs, with several other encumbrances of dress, that they stand in need of being pruned very frequently, lest they should be oppressed with ornaments, and overrun with the luxuriancy of their habits. I am much in doubt, whether I should give the preference to a quaker that is trimmed close, 'and almost cut to the quick, or to a beau that is loaden with such a redundance of excrescences. I must there fore desire my correspondents to let me know how they approve my project, and whether they think the erecting of such a petty censorship may not turn to the emolument of the public; for I would not do any thing of this nature rashly and without advice. What I have said under the three foregoing heads, will, I am afraid, very much retrench the number of my correspondents. I shall therefore acquaint my reader, that if he has started any hint which he is not able to pursue, if he has met with any surpising story which he does not know how to tell, if he has discovered any epidemical vice which has escaped my observation, or has heard of any uncommon virtue which he would desire to publish; in short, if he has any materials that can furnish out an innocent diversion, shall promise him my best assistance in the working of them up for a public entertainment. This paper my reader will find was intended for an answer to a multitude of correspondents; but I hope he will pardon me if I single out one of them in particular, who has made me so very humble a request, that I cannot forbear complying with it. 'SIR, 'TO THE SPECTATOR. • March 15, 1710-11. There is another set of correspondents to whom I must address myself in the second place; I mean such as fill their letters wtth private scandal, and black accounts of particular persons and families. The world is so full of ill-nature, that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write. By the last post in particular, I received a packet of scandal which is not legible; and have a whole bundle of letters in women's hands, I AM at present so unfortunate, as to have nothing that are full of blots and calumnies, insomuch, that when I see the name Cælia, Phillis, Pastora, or the to do but to mind my own business; and therefore Jike, at the bottom of a scrawl, I conclude of beg of you that you will be pleased to put me into course that it brings me some account of a fallen some small post under you. I observe that you virgin, a faithless wife, or an amorous widow. Iceive letters and advertisements for the city of have appointed your printer and publisher to remust therefore inform these my correspondents, London; and shall think myself very much honourthat it is not my design to be a publisher of in-ed by you, if you will appoint me to take in lettrigues and cuckoldoms, or to bring little infamous stories out of their present lurking holes into broad day-light. If I attack the vicious, I shall only set upon them in a body; and will not be provoked by the worst usage I can receive from others, to make an example of any particular criminal. In short, I have so much of a Drawcansir* in me, that I shall pass over a single foe to charge whole armies. It is not Lais or Silenus, but the harlot and the drunkard, whom I shall endeavour to expose; and shall consider the crime as it appears in a species, not as it is circumstanced in an individual. I think it was Caligula, who wished the whole city of Rome had but one neck, that he might behead them at a blow. I should do, out of humanity, what that emperor would have done in the cruelty of his temper, and aim every stroke at a collective body of offenders. At the same time I am very sensible, that nothing spreads a paper like private calumny and defamation; but as my speculations are not under this necessity, they are not exposed to this temptation. ters and advertisements for the city of Westminster ADDISON. N° 17. TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1710-11. Tetrum ante omnia vultum, A visage rough, JUV. x. 191. DRYDEN. SINCE our persons are not of our own making, when they are such as appear defective or uncomeIn the next place, I must apply myself to my ly, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable fortitude party correspondents, who are continually teasing to dare to be ugly; at least to keep ourselves from me to take notice of one another's proceedings. being abashed with a consciousness of imperfecHow often am I asked by both sides, if it is tions which we cannot help, and in which there is possible for me to be an unconcerned spectator of no guilt. I would not defend an haggard beau, the rogueries that are committed by the party for passing away much time at a glass, and giving which is opposite to him that writes the letter? softness and languishing graces to deformity: all I About two days since, I was reproached with an intend is, that we ought to be contented with our old Grecian law, that forbids any man to stand as countenance and shape, so far, as never to give ourneuter, or a looker-on in the divisions of his coun- selves an uneasy reflection on that subject. It is try. However, as I am very sensible my paper to the ordinary people, who are not accustomed to would lose its whole effect, should it run out into make very proper remarks on any occasion, matthe outrages of a party, I shall take care to keep ter of great jest, if a man enters with a prominent clear of every thing which looks that way. If I pair of shoulders into an assembly, or is distincan any way assuage private inflammations, or al- guished by an expansion of mouth, or obliquity of lay public ferments, I shall apply myself to it with aspect. It is happy for a man that has any of my utmost endeavours; but will never let my heart these oddnessess about him, if he can be as merry reproach me with having done any thing towards upon himself, as others are apt to be upon that ocincreasing those feuds and animosities, that extin- casion. When he can possess himself with such a guish religion, deface government, and make a na-cheerfulness, women and children, who are at first tion miserable. * A character in the comedy of The Rehearsal. frighted at him, will afterwards be as much pleased with him. As it is barbarous in others to rally ts, it is extremely agreeable n himself for them*. a's first husband was an hero as drawn many pleasantries y of his shape, which he deresembling the letter Z. He wise by representing to his an engine and pully, with ke off his hat. When there ing ridiculous in a visage, and ks it an aspect of dignity, he at quality to be exempt from expedient therefore is to be f. Prince Harry and Falstaff, carried the ridicule upon fat it will go. Falstaff is humork, bedpresser, and hill of flesh; an elves-skin, a sheeth, a bowThere is, in several incidents of ween them, the jest still kept up Great tenderness and sensibility of the greatest weaknesses of wn part, I am a little unhappy face, which is not quite so long ether this might not partly arise ny mouth much seldomer than by consequence not so much es of my visage, I am not at -. However it be, I have been ountenance by the shortness of formerly at great pains in conng a periwig with an high forebeard grow. But now I have this delicacy, and could be conshorter, provided it might quaer of the Merry club, which the es me an account of. I have reFord, and as it abounds with the good humour, which is natural ll set it down word for word as D SIR, y well entertained, in the last of that I have yet seen, by your bs, which I therefore hope you ill take the liberty to furnish you nt of such a one as, perhaps, you 1 your travels, unless it was your on some of the woody parts of the in your voyage to or from Grand re arose in this university (long without saying any thing) several ebdomadal societies, as the Puntty club, and amongst the rest, ib; as a burlesque upon which, pecies, that seem to have come masquerade, for some years last ed themselves together, and asof the Ugly club. This ill-faconsists of a president and twelve e of which is not confined by pacalar foundation, (as St. John's the world believe, and have a separate society within themis left to elect from any school provided the candidates be within b, as set forth in a table, entitled, mity; a clause or two of which you. Son whatsoever shall be admitted queerity in his aspect, or peculiar een well done by William Hay, Esq. en Deformity, published in Dodsley' vol. 1. p. 89. cast of countenance; of which the president and officers for the time being are to determine, and the president to have the casting voice. II. That a singular regard be had upon examination, to the gibbosity of the gentlemen that offer themselves as founder's kinsmen; or to the obliquity of their figure, in what sort soever. 'III. That if the quantity of any man's nose be eminently miscalculated, whether as to length or breadth, he shall have a just pretence to be elected. Lastly, That if there shall be two or more competitors for the same vacancy, cæteris paribus, he that has the thickest skin to have the preference. "Every fresh member, upon his first night, is to entertain the company with a dish of cod-fish, and a speech in praise of Æsop; whose portraiture they have, in full proportion, over the chimney; and their design is, as soon as their funds are sufficient, to purchase the heads of Thersites, Duns Scotus, Scarron, Hudibras, and the old gentleman in Oldham, with all the celebrated ill faces of antiquity, as furniture for the club-room. As they have always been professed admirers of the other sex, so they unanimously declare that they will give all possible encouragement to such as will take the benefit of the statute, though none yet have appeared to do it. The worthy president, who is their most devoted champion, has lately shown me two copies of verses composed by a gentleman of his society; the first, a congratulatory ode, inscribed to Mrs. Touchwood, upon the loss of her two fore-teeth; the other, a panegyric upon Mrs. Andiron's left shoulder. Mrs. Vizard (he says), since the smallpox, is grown tolerably ugly, and a top toast in the club; but I never heard him so lavish of his fine things, as upon old Nell Trot, who constantly officiates at their table; her he even adores and extols as the very counterpart of Mother Shipton; in short, Nell (says he) is one of the extraordinary works of nature; but as for complexion, shape, and features, so valued by others, they are all mere outside and symmetry, which is his aversion. Give me leave to add, that the president is a facetious pleasant gentleman, and never more so, than when he has got (as he calls them) his dear mummers about him; and he often protests it does him good to meet a fellow with a right genuine grimace in his air (which is so agreeable in the generality of the French nation); and as an instance of his sincerity in this particular, he gave me a sight of a list in his pocket-book of all this class, who for these five years have fallen under his observation, with himself at the head of them, and in the rear (as one of a promising and improving aspect) 'SIR, "Your obliged and humble servant, 6 ALEXANDER CARBUNCLE.' and of the gradual progress which it has made upon the English stage; for there is no question but our great grand-children will be very curious to know the reason why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before them, in a tongue which they did not understand. tongue. The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian, and his slaves answered him in English. The lover frequently made his court, and gained the heart of his princess, in a language which she did not understand. One would have thought it very difficult to have carried on dialogues after this manner without an interpreter between the persons that conversed together; but this was the state of the English stage for about three years. Arsinoe was the first opera that gave us a taste of Italian music. The great success this opera❘ met with produced some attempts of forming pieces At length the audience grew tired of understand. upon Italian plans, which should give a more na-ing half the opera; and therefore, to ease them tural and reasonable entertainment than what can selves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, have so be met with in the elaborate trifles of that nation. ordered it at present, that the whole opera is per This alarmed the poetasters and fiddlers of the formed in an unknown tongue. We no longer town, who were used to deal in a more ordinary understand the language of our own stage; insokind of ware; and therefore laid down an esta- much that I have often been afraid, when I bave blished rule, which is received as such to this day, seen our Italian performers chattering in the veheThat nothing is capable of being well set to mu- mence of action, that they have been calling us sic, that is not nonsense.' names, and abusing us among themselves; but I hope, since we do put such an entire confidence in them, they will not talk against us before our faces, though they may do it with the same safety as if it were behind our backs. In the mean time, I cannot forbear thinking how naturally an historian, who writes two or three hundred years hence, and does not know the taste of his wise forefathers, will make the following reflections: In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Italian tongue was so well understood in England, that operas were acted on the public stage in that language.' This maxim was no sooner received, but we immediately fell to translating the Italian operas; and as there was no great danger of hurting the sense of those extraordinary pieces, our authors would often make words of their own, which were entirely foreign to the meaning of the passages they pretended to translate; their chief care being to make the numbers of the English verse answer to those of the Italian, that both of them might go to the same tune. Thus the famous song in Camilla : 'Barbara si t'intendo,' &c. Barbarous woman, yes, I know your meaning;' which expresses the resentments of an angry lover, was translated into that English lamentation: Frail are a lover's hopes,' &c. And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined persons of the British nation dying away and languishing to notes that were filled with a spirit of rage and indignation. It happened also very frequently, where the sense was rightly translated, the necessary transposition of words, which were drawn out of the phrase of one tongue into that of another, made the music appear very absurd in one tongue that was very natural in the other. I remember an Italian verse that ran thus, word for word: And turn'd my rage into pity;' which the English for rhyme sake translated, And into pity turn'd my rage.' By this means the soft notes that were adapted to pity in the Italian, fell upon the word rage in the English; and the angry sounds that were turned to rage in the original, were made to express pity in the translation. It oftentimes happened likewise, that the finest notes in the air fell upon the most insignificant words in the sentence. I have known the word 'and' pursued through the whole gamut, have been entertained with many a melodious the,' and have heard the most beautiful graces, quavers, and divisions bestowed upon then, for, and from;' to the eternal honour of our English particles. The next step to our refinement, was the introducing of Italian actors into our opera; who sung their parts in their own language, at the same time that our countrymen performed theirs in our native One scarce knows how to be serious in the confutation of an absurdity that shows itself at the first sight. It does not want any great measure of sense to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice: but what makes it the more astonishing, it is not the taste of the rabble, but of persons of the greatest politeness, which has established it. If the Italians have a genius for music above the English, the English have a genius for other performances of a much higher nature, and capable of giving the mind a much nobler entertainment. Would one think it was possible (at a time when an author lived that was able to write the Phædra and Hippolitus) for a people to be so stupidly fond of the Italian opera, as scarce to give a third day's hearing to that admirable tragedy? Music is certainly a very agreeable entertainment: but if it would take the entire possession of our ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing sense, if it would exclude arts that have a much greater tendency to the refinement of human nature; I must confess I would allow it no better quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his commonwealth. At present our notions of music are so very uncertain, that we do not know what it is we like only, in general, we are transported with any thing that is not English: so it be of a foreign growth, let it be Italian, French, or High Dutch, it is the same thing. In short, our English music is quite rooted out, and nothing yet planted in its stead. When a royal palace is burnt to the ground, every man is at liberty to present his plan for a new one; and though it be but indifferently put together, it may furnish several hints that may be of use to a good architect. I shall take the same liberty, in a following paper, of giving my opinion upon the subject of music; which I shall lay down only in a problematical manner, as to be considered by those who are masters in the art. ADDISON. C. AY, MARCH 22, 1710-11. : me quodque pusilli HOR. 1 Sat. iv. 17. made me of a humble mind; to words inclin'd! cuted, upon better information appears so altered in its circumstances, that the fame of it is divided among many, instead of being attributed to one. This is a secret satisfaction to these malignants; for the person whom they before could not but admire, they fancy is nearer their own condition as soon as his merit is shared among others. I remember some years ago there came out an excellent poem without the name of the author. The little wits, who were incapable of writing it, began to pull in pieces the supposed writer. When that would not on bebold another, who was do, they took great pains to suppress the opinion him, with a cast of his eye, that it was his. That again failed. The next rexpressed an emotion of heart fuge was, to say it was overlooked by one man, what could be raised by an ob- and many pages wholly written by another. An the gentleman he looked at, I honest fellow who sat among a cluster of them in ot without some secret sorrow, debate on this subject, cried out, Gentlemen, if envious man. Some have fan- you are sure none of you yourselves had a hand in a certain magical force in it, it, you are but where you were, whoever writ it.' of the envious have by their But the most usual succour to the envious, in cases he enjoyments of the happy. of nameless merit in this kind, is to keep the proays, some have been so curious perty, if possible, unfixed, and by that means to es and seasons when the stroke hinder the reputation of it from falling upon any is mest effectually pernicious, particular person. You see an envious man clear hat it has been when the per-up his countenance, if in the relation of any man's in any circumstance of glory great happiness in one point, you mention his unch a time the mind of the pros- easiness in another. When he hears such a one is it were, abroad, among things very rich he turns pale, but recovers when you add s more exposed to the maligni- that he has many children. In a word, the only dwell upon speculations so ab- sure way to an envious man's favour, is not to derepeat the many excellent serve it. ght collect out of authors upon ion: but, keeping in the road sider the envious man with reheads, his pains, his reliefs, and But if we consider the envious man in delight, it is like reading of the seat of a giant in a romance; the magnificence of his house consists in the many limbs of men whom he has slain. If any who promised themselves success in any uncommon undertaking miscarry in the attempt, or he that aimed at what would have been useful and laudable, meets with contempt and derision, the envious man, under the colour of hating vain-glory, can smile with an inward wantonness of heart at the ill effect it may have upon an honest ambition for the future. is in pain upon all occasions ve him pleasure. The relish of and the objects which adminifaction to those who are exempt ve the quickest pangs to persons it. All the perfections of their re odious. Youth, beauty, vae provocations of their displea- Having thoroughly considered the nature of this tched and apostate state is this! passion, I have made it my study how to avoid the excellence, and to hate a man envy that may accrue to me from these my specuve him! The condition of the lations; and if I am not mistaken in myself, I e most emphatically miserable; think I have a genius to escape it. Upon hearing pable of rejoicing in another's in a coffee-house one of my papers commended, I ut lives in a world wherein all immediately apprehended the envy that would lot against his quiet, by study-spring from that applause; and therefore gave a ppiness and advantage. Will description of my face the next day; being renest tale-bearer. He makes it solved, as I grew in reputation for wit, to resign n in conversation with envious my pretensions to beauty. This, I hope, may give to such an handsome young fel- some ease to those unhappy gentlemen who do me that he is secretly married to a the honour to torment themselves upon the account When they doubt, he adds cir- of this my paper. As their case is very deplorable, ove it; and never fails to aggra- and deserves compassion, I shall sometimes be by assuring them, that, to his dull, in pity to them, and will from time to time an uncle will leave him some administer consolations to them by further discohas many arts of this kind to veries of my person. In the meanwhile, if any one temper, and delights in it. When says the Spectator has wit, it may be some relief nge colour, and say faintly they to them to think that he does not show it in comof news is true, he has the malice pany. And if any one praises his morality, they ad or other of every man of their may comfort themselves by considering that his face is none of the longest. the envious man are those little perfections that discover themrious character. It is a matter of to an envious person, when a honour does a thing unworthy any action which was well exe * See N° 20. STEELE. R. |