of wine, and a Jew eat me up half a ham of bacon. If I can bring my design to bear, and make the maskers preserve their characters in my assemblies, I hope you will allow there is a foundation laid for more elegant and improving gallantries than any the town at present affords, and consequently, that you will give your approbation to the endeavours of, Sir, 'Your most obedient humble servant. I am very glad the following epistle obliges me to mention Mr. Powell a second time in the same paper; for indeed there Io cannot be too great encouragement given to his skill in motions", provided he is under proper restrictions. 'SIR, 'The opera at the Haymarket, and that under the little Piazza in Covent-garden, being at present the two leading diversions of the town, and Mr. Powell professing in his advertisements to set up Whittington and his Cat" against Rinaldo and Armida", my curiosity led me the beginning of last week to view both these performances, and make my observations upon them. 'First, therefore, I cannot but observe that Mr. Powell wisely 20 forbearing to give his company a bill of fare before-hand, every scene is new and unexpected; whereas it is certain, that the undertakers of the Haymarket, having raised too great an expectation in their printed opera, very much disappoint their audience on the stage. 'The King of Jerusalem is obliged to come from the city on foot, instead of being drawn in a triumphant chariot by white horses, as my opera-book had promised me; and thus while I expected Armida's dragons should rush forward towards Argantes, I found the hero was obliged to go to Armida, and 30 hand her out of her coach. We had also but a very short allowance of thunder and lightning; though I cannot in this place omit doing justice to the boy who had the direction of the two painted dragons, and made them spit fire and smoke. He flashed out his rosin in such just proportions, and in such due time, that I could not forbear conceiving hopes of his being one day a most excellent player. I saw, indeed, but two things wanting to render his whole action complete, I mean the keeping his head a little lower, and hiding his candle. 'I observe that Mr. Powell and the undertakers had both the same thought, and I think much about the same time, of introducing animals on their several stages - though indeed, with very different success. The sparrows and chaffinches at the Haymarket fly as yet very irregularly over the stage; and instead of perching on the trees, and performing their parts, these young actors either get into the galleries, or put out the candles; whereas Mr. Powell has so well disciplined his pig, that in the first scene he and Punch dance a minuet together. I am informed, however, that Mr. Powell resolves to 10 excel his adversaries in their own way; and introduces larks in his next opera of Susannah, or Innocence Betrayed, which will be exhibited next week, with a pair of new Elders. 'The moral of Mr. Powell's drama is violated, I confess, by Punch's national reflections on the French, and King Harry's aying his leg upon the Queen's lap, in too ludicrous a manner, before so great an assembly. 'As to the mechanism and scenery, every thing, indeed, was uniform, and of a piece, and the scenes were managed very dexterously; which calls on me to take notice, that at the Hay20 market, the undertakers forgetting to change their side-scenes, we were presented with the prospect of the ocean in the midst of a delightful grove; and though the gentlemen on the stage had very much contributed to the beauty of the grove, by walking up and down between the trees, I must own I was not a little astonished to see a well-dressed young fellow in a full bottomed wig, appear in the midst of the sea, and without any visible concern taking snuff. 'I shall only observe one thing farther both pieces is equal, I must prefer the 30 Powell, because it is in our own language. Spectator, No. 14.] No. 108. ; as the wit in performance of Mr. 'I am, &c.' [March 16, 1711. On the Scornful Lady; character of Sir Roger the Discit enim citius, meminitque libentius illud, HOR. Ep. ii. I, 262. Í do not know that I have been in greater delight for these many years, than in beholding the boxes at the play the last A a time The Scornful Lady" was acted. So great an assembly of ladies placed in gradual rows in all the ornaments of jewels, silks, and colours, gave so lively and gay an impression to the heart, that methought the season of the year was vanished; and I did not think it an ill expression of a young fellow who stood near me, that called the boxes those 'beds of tulips.' It was a pretty variation of the prospect, when any one of those fine ladies rose up and did honour" to herself and friend at a distance, by curtseying; and gave opportunity to that friend to 10 show her charms to the same advantage in returning the salutation. Here that action is as proper and graceful, as it is at church unbecoming and impertinent. By the way I must take the liberty to observe that I did not see any one who is usually so full of civilities at church, offer at any such indecorum during any part of the action of the play. Such beautiful prospects gladden our minds, and when considered in general, give innocent and pleasing ideas. He that dwells upon any one object of beauty, may fix his imagination to his disquiet; but the contemplation of a whole assembly together is a defence against the 20 encroachment of desire. At least to me, who have taken pains to look at beauty abstracted from the consideration of its being the object of desire; at power, only as it sits upon another, without any hopes of partaking any share of it; at wisdom and capacity, without any pretensions to rival or envy its acquisitions. I say to me, who am really free from forming any hopes by beholding the persons of beautiful women, or warming myself into ambition from the successes of other men, this world is not only a mere scene, but a very pleasant one. Did mankind but know the freedom which there is in keeping thus 30 aloof from the world, I should have more imitators, than the powerfullest man in the nation has followers. To be no man's rival in love, or competitor in business, is a character which, if it does not recommend you as it ought to benevolence among those whom you live with, yet has it certainly this effect, that you do not stand so much in need of their approbation, as you would if you aimed at it more, in setting your heart on the same things which the generality doat on. By this means, and with this easy philosophy, I am never less at a play than when I am at the theatre; but indeed I am seldom so well pleased with 40 action as in that place; for most men follow nature no longer than while they are in their night-gowns ", and all the busy part of the day are in characters which they neither become, nor act in with pleasure to themselves or their beholders. But to return to my ladies: I was very well pleased to see so great a crowd of them assembled at a play, wherein the heroine, as the phrase is, is so just a picture of the vanity of the sex in tormenting their admirers. The lady who pines for the man whom she treats with so much impertinence and inconstancy, is drawn with much art and humour. Her resolutions to be extremely 10 civil, but her vanity rising just at the instant she resolved to express herself kindly, are described as by one who had studied the sex. But when my admiration is fixed upon this excellent character, and two or three others in the play, I must confess I was moved with the utmost indignation, at the trivial, senseless, and unnatural representation of the chaplain. It is possible there may be a pedant in holy orders, and we have seen one or two of them in the world: but such a driveller as Sir Roger", so bereft of all manner of pride, which is the characteristic of a pedant, is what one would not believe would come into the 20 head of the same man who drew the rest of the play. The meeting between Welford and him shows a wretch without any notion of the dignity of his function; and it is out of all common sense that he should give an account of himself as one sent four or five miles in a morning, on foot, for eggs.' It is not to be denied, but this part, and that of the maid whom he makes love to, are excellently well performed; but a thing which is blameable in itself, grows still more so by the success in the execution of it. It is so mean a thing to gratify a loose age with a scandalous representation of what is reputable among 30 men, not to say what is sacred, that no beauty, no excellence in an author ought to atone for it; nay, such excellence is an aggravation of his guilt, and an argument that he errs against the conviction of his own understanding and conscience. Wit should be tried by this rule, and an audience should rise against such a scene as throws down the reputation of any thing, which the consideration of religion or decency should preserve from contempt. But all this evil arises from this one corruption of mind, that makes men resent offences against their virtue, less than those against their understanding. An author shall write 40 as if he thought there was not one man of honour or woman of chastity in the house, and come off with applause: for an insult upon all the ten commandments with the little critics is not so bad as the breach of an unity of time and place. Half wits do not apprehend the miseries that must necessarily flow from degeneracy of manners; nor do they know that order is the support of society. Sir Roger and his mistress are monsters of the poet's own forming; the sentiments in both of them are such as do not arise in fools of their education. We all know that a silly scholar, instead of being below every one he meet with, is 10 apt to be exalted above the rank of such as are really his superiors his arrogance is always founded upon particular notions of distinction in his own head, accompanied with a pedantic scorn of all fortune and pre-eminence, when compared with his knowledge and learning. This very one character of Sir Roger, as silly as it really is, has done more towards the disparagement of holy orders ", and consequently of virtue itself, than all the wit of that author, or any other, could make up for in the conduct of the longest life after it. I do not pretend, in saying this, to give myself airs of more virtue than my neigh20 bours, but assert it from the principles by which mankind must always be governed. Sallies of imagination are to be overlooked, when they are committed out of warmth in the recommendation of what is praiseworthy; but a deliberate advancing of vice, with all the wit in the world, is as ill an action as any that comes before the magistrate, and ought to be received as such by the people. Spectator, No. 270.] [January 9, 1712. No. 109. The Distrest Mother; Will Honeycomb on Stagecraft; Letters from George Powell and Sophia. Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba. The players, who know I am very much their friend, take all opportunities to express a gratitude to me for being so. They could not have a better occasion of obliging me, than one which |