has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you, when the duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance, or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the present lord Such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner, that said a lively thing in the house, he starts up, 'He has good blood in his vein; Tom Mirable begot him; the rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to.' This way of talking of his, very much enlivens the conversation amongst us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man, who is usually called a wellbred fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man. himself with great gallantry in several en- | a word, all his conversation and knowledge gagements and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to nis merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds who endeavour at the same end with himself, the favour of a commander. He will however in his way of talk excuse generals, for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it; for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from a habit of obeying men highly above him. But that our society may not appear a set of humourists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have amongst us the gallant Will Honeycomb; a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life; but having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but a very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces on his brain. His person is well turned, and of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French King's wenches, our wives and daughters nad this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petticoat, and whose vanity to show her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In I cannot tell whether I am to account him, whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in years, that he observes when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions. R. to see the directors, secretaries, and clerks, | letters from all parts of the world, which with all the other members of that weal- the one or the other of them was perpetuthy corporation, ranged in their several ally reading to her; and, according to the stations, according to the parts they act news she heard, to which she was exceedin that just and regular economy. This ingly attentive, she changed colour, and revived in my memory the many discourses discovered many symptoms of health or which I had both read and heard, concern- sickness. ing the decay of public credit, with the methods of restoring it, and which in my opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to separate interests, and party principles. The thoughts of the day gave my mind employment for the whole night, so that I fell insensibly into a kind of methodical dream, which disposed all my contemplations into a vision or allegory, or what else the reader shall please to call it. Behind the throne was a prodigious heap of bags of money, which were piled upon one another so high that they touched the ceiling. The floor on her right hand, and on her left, was covered with vast sums of gold that rose up in pyramids on either side of her. But this I did not so much wonder at, when I heard upon inquiry, that she had the same virtue in her touch, which the poets tell us a Lydian king was formerly possessed of: and that she could convert whatever she pleased into that precious metal. in a kind of dance. It would be tedious to describe their habits and persons, for which reason I shall only inform my reader, that the first couple were Tyranny and Anarchy, the second were Bigotry and Atheism, and the third the genius of a commonwealth, and a young man of about twenty-two years of age,* whose name I could not learn. He had a sword in his right hand, which in the dance he often brandished at the Act of Settlement; and a citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my ear, that he saw a sponge in his left hand. The dance of so many jarring natures put me in mind of the sun, moon, and earth, in the Rehearsal, that danced together for no other end but to eclipse one another. Methought I returned to the great hall, where I had been the morning before, but After a little dizziness, and confused to my surprise, instead of the company that hurry of thought, which a man often meets I left there, I saw, towards the upper end with in a dream, methought the hall was of the hall, a beautiful virgin seated on a alarmed, the doors flew open and there enthrone of gold. Her name (as they told tered half a dozen of the most hideous me) was Public Credit. The walls, in- phantoms that I had ever seen (even in a stead of being adorned with pictures and dream) before that time. They came in maps, were hung with many acts of par- two by two, though matched in the most liament written in golden letters. At the up-dissociable manner, and mingled together per end of the hall was the Magna Charta, with the Act of Uniformity on the right hand, and the Act of Toleration on the left. At the lower end of the hall was the Act of Settlement, which was placed full in the eye of the virgin that sat upon the throne. Both the sides of the hall were covered with such acts of parliament as had been made for the establishment of public funds. The lady seemed to set an unspeakable value upon these several pieces of furniture, insomuch that she often refreshed her eye with them, and often smiled with a secret pleasure, as she looked upon them; but, at the same time, showed a very particular uneasiness, if she saw any thing approaching that might hurt them. She appeared, indeed, infinitely timorous in all The reader will easily suppose, by what her behaviour: and whether it was from has been before said, that the lady on the the delicacy of her constitution, or that she throne would have been almost frighted to was troubled with vapours as I was after-distraction, had she seen but any one of wards told by one, who I found was none of her well-wishers, she changed colour, and startled at every thing she heard. She was likewise (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with, even in her own sex, and subject to such momentary consumptions, that in the twinkling of an eye, she would fall away from the florid complexion, and most healthful state of body, and wither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as sudden as her decays, insomuch that she There was as great a change in the hill would revive in a moment out of a wasting of money-bags, and the heaps of money; distemper, into a habit of the highest health the former shrinking and falling into so and vigour. many empty bags, that I now found not I had very soon an opportunity of observing these quick turns and changes in her constitution. There sat at her feet a couple of secretaries, who received every hour these spectres; what then must have been her condition when she saw them all in a body? She fainted and died away at the sight. Et neque jam color est misto candore rubori; Her spirits faint, Her blooming cheeks assume a pallid teint, June 10, 1688. See Tat. No. 187. To wipe out the national debt. above a tenth part of them had been filled with money. The rest, that took up the same space, and made the same figure, as the bags that were really filled with money, had been blown up with air, and called into my memory the bags full of wind, which Homer tells us his hero received as a present from olus. The great heaps of gold on either side of the throne, now appeared to be only heaps of paper, or little piles of notched sticks, bound up together in bundles, like Bath faggots. Whilst I was lamenting this sudden desolation that had been made before me, the whole scene vanished. In the room of the frightful spectres, there now entered a second dance of apparitions, very agreeably matched together, and made up of very amiable phantoms. The first pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand; the second was Moderation, leading in Religion; and the third a person whom I had never seen, * with the Genius of Great Britain. At the first entrance the lady revived, the bags swelled to their former bulk, the pile of faggots and heaps of paper changed into pyramids of guineas: and for my own part I was so transported with joy, that I awaked, though I must confess I fain would have fallen asleep again to have closed my vision, if I could have done it. One of uncommon silence and reserve. AN author, when he first appears in the world, is very apt to believe it has nothing to think of but his performances. With a good share of this vanity in my heart, I made it my business these three days to listen after my own fame; and as I have sometimes met with circumstances which did not displease me, I have been encountered by others, which gave me much mortification. It is incredible to think how empty I have in this time observed some part of the species to be, what mere blanks they are when they first come abroad in the morning, how utterly they are at a stand, until they are set a-going by some paragraph in a newspaper. Such persons are very acceptable to a young author, for they desire no more in any thing but to be new, to be agreeable. If I found consolation among such, I was as much disquieted by the incapacity of others. These are mortals who have a certain curiosity without power of reflection, and perused my papers like spectators rather than readers. But there is so little pleasure in inquiries that so nearly concern ourselves, (it being the worst way The Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I. in the world to fame, to be too anxious about it) that upon the whole I resolved for the future to go on in my ordinary way; and without too much fear or hope about the business of reputation, to be very careful of the design of my actions, but very negligent of the consequences of them. It is an endless and frivolous pursuit to act by any other rule, than the care of satisfying our own minds in what we do. One would think a silent man, who concerned himself with no one breathing, should be very little liable to misrepresentations; and yet I remember I was once taken up for a jesuit, for no other reason but my profound taciturnity. It is from this misfortune, that to be out of harm's way, I have ever since affected crowds. He who comes into assemblies only to gratify his curiosity, and not to make a figure, enjoys the pleasures of retirement in a more exquisite degree, than he possibly could in his closet; the lover, the ambitious, and the miser, are followed thither by a worse crowd than any they can withdraw from. To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude. I can very justly say with the ancient sage, 'I am never less alone than when alone. As I am insignificant to the company in public places, and as it is visible I do not come thither as most do, to show myself, I gratify the vanity of all who pretend to make an appearance, and have often as kind looks from well-dressed gentlemen and ladies, as a poet would bestow upon one of his audience. There are so many gratifications attend this public sort of obscurity, that some little distastes I daily receive have lost their anguish; and I did the other day, without the least displeasure, overhear one say of me, that strange fellow!' and another answer, 'I have known the fellow's face these twelve years, and so must you; but I believe you are the first ever asked who he was.' There are, I must confess, many to whom my person is as well known as that of their nearest relations, who give themselves no farther trouble about calling me by my name or quality, but speak of me very currently by the appellation of Mr. What-d'ye-call-him. To make up for these trivial disadvantages, I have the highest satisfaction of beholding all nature with an unprejudiced eye; and having nothing to do with men's passions or interests, I can, with the greater sagacity, consider their talents, manners, failings, and merits. It is remarkable, that those who want any one sense, possess the others with greater force and vivacity. Thus my want of, or rather resignation of speech, gives me all the advantages of a dumb man. I have, methinks, a more than ordinary penetration in seeing; and flatter myself that I have looked into the highest and lowest of mankind, and made shrewd guesses, without being admitted to their carsa or flattered, I never belied or contradicted them. As these compose half the world, and are, by the just complacence and gallantry of our nation, the more powerful part of our people, I shall dedicate a considerable share of these my speculations to their service, and shall lead the young through all the becoming duties of virginity, marriage, and widowhood. When it is a woman's day, in my works, I shall endeavour at a style and air suitable to their tion, at the inmost thoughts and reflections perhaps raised in me uncommon reflecof all whom I behold. It is from hence tions; but this effect I cannot communicate that good or ill fortune has no manner of but by my writings. As my pleasures are force towards affecting my judgment. I almost wholly confined to those of the sight, see men flourishing in courts and languish- I take it for a peculiar happiness that I ing in jails, without being prejudiced, from have always had an easy and familiar adtheir circumstances, to their favour or dis-mittance to the fair sex. If I never praised advantage; but from their inward manner of bearing their condition, often pity the prosperous, and admire the unhappy. Those who converse with the dumb, know from the turn of their eyes, and the changes of their countenance, their sentiments of the objects before them. I have indulged my silence to such an extravagance, that the few who are intimate with me, answer my smiles with concurrent sentences, and argue to the very point I shaked my head at, without my speaking. Will understanding. When I say this, I must Honeycomb was very entertaining the other night at a play, to a gentleman who sat on his right hand, while I was at his left. The gentleman believed Will was talking to himself, when upon my looking with great approbation at a young thing in a box before us, he said, I am quite of another opinion. She has, I will allow, a very pleasing aspect, but, methinks that simplicity in her countenance is rather childish than innocent.' When I observed her a second time, he said, 'I grant her dress is very becoming, but perhaps the merit of that choice is owing to her mother; for though,' continued he, 'I allow a beauty to be as much commended for the elegance of her dress, as a wit for that of his language; yet if she has stolen the colour of her ribands from another, or had advice about her trimmings, I shall not allow her the praise of dress, any more than I would call a plagiary an author.' When I threw my eye towards the next woman to her, Will spoke what I looked, according to his romantic imagination, in the following man ner: be understood to mean, that I shall not lower, but exalt the subjects I treat upon. Discourse for their entertainment is not to be debased but refined. A man may appear learned without talking sentences, as in his ordinary gesture he discovers he can dance, though he does not cut capers. In a word, I shall take it for the greatest glory of my work, if among reasonable women this paper may furnish tea-table talk. In crder to it, I shall treat on matters which relate to females, as they are concerned to approach or fly from the other sex, or as they are tied to them by blocd, interest or affection. Upon this occasion I think it is but reasonable to declare, that whatever skill I may have in speculation, I shall never betray what the eyes of lovers say to each other in my presence. At the same time I shall not think myself obliged, by this promise, to conceal any false protestations which I observe made by glances in public assemblies; but endeavour to make both sexes appear in their conduct what they are in their hearts. By this means, love, during the time of my speculations, shall be carried on with the same sincerity as any other affair of less consideration. As this is the greatest concern, men shall be from henceforth liable to the greatest reproach for misbehaviour in it. Falsehood in love shall hereafter bear a blacker aspect than infidelity in friendship, or villany in business. For this great and good end, all breaches against that noble passion, the cement of society, shall be severely examined. But this, and other matters loosely hinted at now, and in my former papers, shall have their proper place in my following discourses. The present writing is only to admonish the world, that they shall not find me an idle but a busy Spectator. R. 'Behold, you who dare, that charming virgin; behold the beauty of her person chastised by the innocence of her thoughts. Chastity, good-nature, and affability, are the graces that play in her countenance; she knows she is handsome, but she knows she is good. Conscious beauty adorned with conscious virtue! What a spirit is there in those eyes! What a bloom in that person! How is the whole woman expressed in her appearance! Her air has the beauty of motion, and her look the force of language.' It was prudence to turn away my eyes from this object, and therefore I turned them to the thoughtless creatures who make up the lump of that sex, and move a knowing eye no more than the portraiture of insignificant people by ordinary painters, No. 5.] Tuesday, March 6, 1710-11. which are but pictures of pictures. Thus the working of my own mind is the general entertainment of my life; I never enter into the commerce of discourse with any but my particular friends, and not in public even with them. Such a habit has Spectatum admissi risum teneatis? Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 5. design is to gratify the senses, and keep up horse, and that there was actually a proan indolent attention in the audience. Com- ject of bringing the New-river into the mon sense, however, requires, that there house, to be employed in jetteaus and washould be nothing in the scenes and ma- ter-works. This project, as I have since chines, which may appear childish and heard, is postponed till the summer season, absurd. How would the wits of King when it is thought the coolness that proCharles's time have laughed to have seen ceeds from fountains and cascades will be Nicolini exposed to a tempest in robes of more acceptable and refreshing to the peoermine, and sailing in an open boat upon ple of quality. In the mean time, to find a sea of pasteboard? What a field of rail-out a more agreeable entertainment for the lery would they have been let into, had winter season, the opera of Rinaldot is fillthey been entertained with painted dra-ed with thunder and lightning, illuminagons spitting wildfire, enchanted chariots tions and fire-works; which the audience drawn by Flanders' mares, and real cas- may look upon without catching cold, cades in artificial landscapes? A little skill and indeed without much danger of being in criticism would inform us, that shadows burnt; for there are several engines filled and realities ought not to be mixed together with water, and ready to play at a minute's in the same piece; and that the scenes warning, in case any such accident should which are designed as the representations happen. However, as I have a very great of nature, should be filled with resem- friendship for the owner of this theatre, I blances, and not with the things them- hope that he has been wise enough to inselves. If one would represent a wide sure his house before he would let this champaign country filled with herds and opera be acted in it. flocks, it would be ridiculous to draw the country only upon the scenes, and to crowd several parts of the stage with sheep and oxen. This is joining together inconsistencies, and making the decoration partly real, and partly imaginary. I would recommend what I have said here to the directors, as well as to the admirers of our modern opera. It is no wonder that those scenes should be very surprising, which were contrived by two poets of different nations, and raised by two magicians of different sexes. Armida (as we are told in the argument) was an Amazonian enchantress, and poor Signior Cassani (as we learn from the persons represented) a Christian conjuror (Mago Christiano.) I must confess I am very much puzzled to find out how an Amazon should be versed in the black art, or how a good Christian, for such is the part of the magician, should deal with the devil. To consider the poet after the conjurors. I shall give you a taste of the Italian from the first lines of the preface: Eccoti, benigno lettore, un parto di poche sere, che se ben nato di notte, non e pero aborto di tenebre, ma si fara conoscere figlio d'Apollo con qualche raggio di Parnasso.'---' Behold, gentle reader, the birth of a few evenings, which, though it be the offspring of the night, is not the abortive of darkness, but will make itself known to be the son of Apollo, with a certain ray of Parnassus.' He afterwards proceeds to call Mynheer Handel the Orpheus of our age, and to acquaint us, in the same sublimity of style, that he composed this opera in a fortnight. Such are the wits to whose tastes we so ambitiously conform ourselves. The truth of it is, the finest writers among the mo As I was walking in the streets about a fortnight ago, I saw an ordinary fellow carrying a cage full of little birds upon his shoulder; and as I was wondering with myself what use he would put them to, he was met very luckily by an acquaintance who had the same curiosity. Upon his asking what he had upon his shoulder, he told him that he had been buying sparrows for the opera. Sparrows for the opera,' says his friend, licking his lips, what, are they to be roasted? No, no,' says the other, they are to enter towards the end of the first act, and to fly about the stage.' This strange dialogue awakened my curiosity so far, that I immediately bought the opera, by which means I perceived that the sparrows were to act the part of singing birds in a delightful grove; though upon a nearer inquiry I found the sparrows put the same trick upon the audience, that Sir Martin Mar-all practised upon his mistress: for though they flew in sight, the music proceeded from a concert of flagelets and bird-calls, which were planted behind the scenes. At the same time I made this discovery, I found by the dis-been little expected that what is here so happily ridicourse of the actors, that there were great designs on foot for the improvement of the opera; that it had been proposed to break down a part of the wall, and to surprise the audience with a party of an hundred * 'Sir Martin Mar-all, or The Feigned Innocence; a comedy, by Dryden, made up of pieces borrowed from Quinault's Amant Indiscret,' the 'Etourdi' of Moliere, and M. du Parc's 'Francion.' At the time this paper was written, it could have lightened days, we have seen the New-river acting as culed, would ever really take place; but, in our enno inconsiderable auxiliary, not only in a suburban theatre, but in Covent garden itself: and if the maagers of our classical theatres' have not been able to bring an hundred horses on the stage, it certainly was not from a want of inclination, but because the stage would not hold them. Rinaldo, an opera, 1711. The plan was laid by Aaron Hill, his outline filled up with Italian words by Sig. G. Rossi, and the music composed by Handel. The story is taken from Tasso, and the scene laid in and near Jerusalem. |