unfortunate lunatic, than a distressed hero. As these superfluous ornaments upon the head make a great man, a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional incumbrances that fall into her tail; I mean the broad sweeping train that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do not know how others are affected at this fight, but I must confess, my eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part; and as for the queen, I am not so attentive to any thing she speaks, as to the right adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or incommode her, as the walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle, to fee a queen venting her paffion in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the twa persons act on the stage at the fame time, are very different; the princefs is afraid left the could incur the displeasure of the king her father, or lofe the hero her lover, whilst her attendant is only concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat. We are told, that an ancient tragic poet, to move the pity of his audience for his exiled kings and distreffed heroes, used to make the actors represent them in dresses and clothes, that were thread-bare and decayed. This artifice for moving pity, feems as ill contrived as that we have been speaking of to inspire us with a great idea of the persons introduced upon the stage. In short. I would have our conceptions raised by the dignity of thought and fublimity of expreffion, rather than by a train of robes or a plume of feathers. Another mechanical method of making great men, and adding dignity to kings and queens, is to accompany them with halberts and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two candle-snuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the English stage; and by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats, can represent above a dozen legions. I have fometimes seen a couple of armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been disposed to do honour to his generals. It is impoffible for the reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into fuch prodigious multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand foldiers are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass, Incidents of fuch a nature should be told, not represented. Non tamen intùs have here only touched upon those particulars which are made use of to raise and aggrandize the persons of a tragedy; and shall shew in another paper the several expedients which are practised by authors of a vulgar genius to move terror, pity or admiration, in their hearers. The taylor and the painter often contribute to the success of a tragedy more than the poet. Scenes affect ordinary minds as much as speeches; and our actors are very sensible, that a well-dressed play has sometimes brought them as full audiences, as a well-written one. The Italians have a very good phrase to express this art of impofing upon the spectators by appearances: they call it the 'Fourberia della scena, the knavery or trick ith part of the drama. But however the show and outside of the tragedy may work upon the vulgar, the more understanding part of the audience immediately see through it and despise it. A good poet will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a description, than if he actually faw them drawn up in squadrous and battalions, or engaged in the confufion of a fight. Our minds should be opened to great conceptions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments, by what the actor speaks, more than by what he appears. Can all the trappings or equipage of a king or hero give Brutus half that pomp and majesty which he receives from a few lines in Shakefpear? No. 43. THURSDAY, APRIL 19. Hæ tibi erunt artes; pacifque imponere morem, Parcere fubje&tis, & debellare fuperbos. VIRG. Æn. vi. 853. Be these thy arts; to bid contention cease, Chain up ftern war, and give the nations T HERE are crowds of men, whose great mis fortune it is that they were not bound to mechanic arts or trades; it being absolutely neceffary for them to be led by fome continual task or employment. These are such as we commonly call dull fellows; persons, who for want of fomething to do, out of a certain vacancy of thought, rather than curiofity, are ever meddling with things for which they are unfit. I cannot give you a notion of them better than by presenting you with a letter from a gentleman, who belongs to a fociety of this order of men, refiding at Oxford. then then the justice to own, that nothing can be more useful or laudable, than the scheme we go upon. To avoid nicknames and witticifms, we call ourselves The Hebdomadal Meeting: • our Prefident continues for a year at least, and sometimes four or five: we are all grave serious, designing men, in our way: we think it our duty, as far as in us lies, to take care the constitution receives no harm ----- Ne quid de'trimenti Res capiat publica----- To censure ' doctrines or facts, persons or things, which we don't like; to settle the nation at home, and to carry on the war abroad, where and in what • manner we fee fit. If other people are not of ' our opinion, we can't help that. 'Twere betfter they were. Moreover, we now and then condescend to direct, in some measure, the little faffairs of our own University. ، Verily, Mr. Spectator, we are much offended at the act for importing French wines: a bottle or two of good folid edifying port at honest George's made a night chearful, and threw off ' referve. But this plaguy French claret will not only cost us more money, but do us less good: had we been aware of it, before it had gone too far, I must tell you, we would have petitioned to be heard upon that fubject. But let that pass. ' I must let you know likewife, good Sir, that we look upon a certain northern prince's march, in conjunction with infidels, to be palpably against our good-will and liking, and, for all Monfieur Palmquist, a most dangerous innova'tion; and we are by no means yet fure, that some people are not at the bottom on't. At least, my own private letters leave room for a politician, well versed in matters of this nature, to suspect as much, as a penetrating friend of mine telis me. ، ، We think we have at last done the business with the malecontents in Hungary, and shall clap up a peace there. • What the neutrality army is to do, or what the army in Flanders, and what two or three other princes, is not yet fully determined among us: and we wait impatiently for the coming-in of the next Dyer, who, you must 'know, is our authentic intelligence, out Ariftotle in politics. And 'tis indeed but fit there should be fome dernier refort, the absolute deci' der of all controverfies. 'We were lately informed, that the gallant train'dbands had patroll'd all night long about the streets of London: we indeed could not imagine any occafion for it, we guessed hot a ' tittle on't aforehand, we were in nothing of the fecret; and that city tradefmen, or their apprentices, should do duty, or work, during the holidays, we thought abfolutely impoffible. But Dyer being positive in it, and fome letters ' from other people, who had talked with fome 'who bad it from those who should know, giving some countenance to it, the chairman re'ported from the committee, appointed to exa'mine into that affair, that 'twas possible there ' might be fomething in't. I have much more to say to you, but my two good friends and neighbours, Dominick and Slyboots, are just come in, and the coffee's ready. I am, in the mean time. ، You may observe the turn of their minds tends only to novelty, and not fatisfaction in any thing. It would be disappointment to them, to come to certainty. in any thing, for that would gravel them, and put an end to their inquiries, which dull fellows do not make for information, but for exercise. I do not know but this may be a very good way of accounting for what we frequently fee, to wit, that dull fellows prove very good men of business. Business relieves them from their own natural heaviness, by furnishing them with what to do; whereas business to mercurial men, is an interruption from their real existence and happiness. Though the dull part of mankind are harmless in their amusements, it were to be wished they had no vacant time, because they usually undertake something that makes their wants confpicuous, by their manner of supplying them. You shall seldom find a dull fellow of good education, but (if he happens to have any leisure upon his hands) will turn his head to one of those two amusements, for all fools of eminence, politics or poety, The former of these arts, is the study of all dull people in general; but when dulness is lodged in a perfon of a quick animal life, it generally exerts itself in poetry. One might here mention a few military writers, who give great entertainment to the age, by reason that the stupidity of their heads is quickned by the alacrity of their hearts. This constitution in a dull fellow, gives vigour to nonfenfe, and makes the puddle boil, which would otherwise stagnate. The British Prince, that celebrated poem, which was written in the reign of king Charles the second, and deservedly called by the wits of that age incomparable, was the effect of fuch an happy genius as we are speaking of. From among many other distichs, no less to be quoted on this account, I cannot but recite the two following lines; A painted vest prince Voltager had on, Which from a naked Pict his grandfire won. Here if the poet had not been vivacious, as well as stupid, he could not, in the warmth and hurry of nonsense, have been capable of forgetting that neither prince Voltager, nor his grand-father, could strip a naked man of his doublet; but a fool of a colder constitution would have staid to have flea'd the Pict, and made buff of his skin, for the wearing of the conqueror. To bring these observations to fome useful purpose of life, what I would propose should be, that we imitated those wife nations, wherein every man learns fome handi-craft-work. Would it not employ a beau prettily enough, if, instead of eternally playing with a fnuff-box, he spent fome part of his time in making one? Such a method as this would very much conduce to the public emolument, by making every man living good for something; for there would then be no one member of human fociety, but would have fome little pretenfions for fome degree in it; like him who came to Will's coffee-house upon the merit of having writ a pofy of a ring. R Abrabam Frotb.' H FRIDAY, N° 44. FRIDAY, APRIL 20. Tu, quid ego & populus mecum defideret, audi. Hor'. Ars Poet, ver. 153. Now hear what ev'ry auditor expects. ROSCOMMON. A MONG the feveral artifices which are put in practife by the poets to fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the defcending of a god, or the rifing of a ghoft, at the vanishing of a devil, or the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into feveral tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole affembly in a very great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A fpectre has very often saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, or rose through a cleft of it, and funk again without fpeaking one word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the founding of the clock in Venice Preferved, makes the hearts of the whole audience quake; and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in Hamlet is a nasterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is wonderfully prepared for his reception by the dissourses, that precede it: his dumb behaviour at his first en trance ftrikes the imagination very strongly; but every time he enters, he is still more terrifying, Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him, without trembling. from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the actor's tongue sympathize with his eyes. A difconfolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn compaffion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took in other plays, being refolved to double the distress, and melt his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet, being refolved to out, write all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced three children with great success: and as I am informed, a young gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, kas a tragedy by him, where the first person that appears upon the stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning-weeds, with half a dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about the figure of charity. Thus several incidents, that are beautiful in a good writer, become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so abfurd and barbarous, and what more exposes us to the contempt and ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one another, which is so very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in feeing men stabbed, poifoned, racked, or impaled, is certainly the sign of a cruel temper: and as this is often practifed before the British audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful spectacles to us, take occafion from them to represent us as a people that delight in blood. It is indeed very odd, to fee our stage strowed with carcafes in the last scene of a tragedy; and to observe in the wardrobe of the play-house feveral daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for poifon, and many other instruments of death. Muiders and executions are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre; which in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilized peo Hor. Leok, my Lord, it comes! Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a fpirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blafts from ple: but as there a e no exceptions to this rule hell; Be thy events wicked or charitable I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above-mentioned when they are introduced with skill, and accompanied by proportionable fentiments and expressions in the writing. For the moving of pity, our principal machine is the handkerchief; and indeed, in our common tragedies, we shouid not know very often that the persons are in diftress by any thing they say, if they did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from me to think of banishing this instrument of forrow from the ftage; I know a tragedy could not fubfift without it all that I would contend for, is to keep it on the French stage, it leads them into abfurdities almost as ridiculous as that which falls under our present cenfure. I remember in the famous play of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii; the fierce young hero who had overcome the Curiatii one after another, instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being upbraided by her for having flain her lover, in the height of his paffion and resentment kills her. If any thing could extenuate so brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the fentiments of nature, reason, or manhood, could take place in him, However, to avoid public bloodshed, as foon as his passion is wrought to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the scenes, I must confefs had he murdered her before the audience, the indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion upon this cafe, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to have been told, if there was any occafion for it. It may not be unacceptable to the reader to fee how Sophocles has conducted tragedy under the like delicate circumstances. Orestes was in the fame condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having murdered his father, and taken I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place of Tragedy, and by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could with intirely rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an endless task to confider Comedy in the same light, and to mention the innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom fail of this effect. In ordinary comedies, a broad and a narrow-brimm'd hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of would dispatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part of the palace where he had flain his father, whose murder he would revenge in the very fame place where it was committed. By this means the poet obferves that decency which Horace afterwards established by a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before the audience, Nec coram populo natos Medea trucidet. Ars. Poct. ver. 185. Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife, And fpill her childrens blood upon the stage. ROSCOMMON, The French have therefore refin'd too much upon Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet; Hor. Ars Poet. ver, 185. Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife, ROSCOMMON. the scene lies in a shoulderbelt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a very good jest in king Charles the second's time; and invented by one of the first wits of that age. But because ridicule is not fo delicate as compaffion, and because the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them. T Natio comæda eft ------- Juv. Sat, iii. 100. The nation is a company of players. HERE is nothing which I more defire than a fafe and honourable peace, though at the same time I am very apprehenfive of many ill consequences that may attend it. I do not mean in regard to our politics, but our manners. What an inundation of ribbons and brocades will break in upon us! What peals of laughter and impertinence shall we be exposed to! For the prevention of these great evils, I could heartily wish that there was an act of parliament for prohibiting the importation of French fopperies. The female inhabitants of our Ifland have already received very strong impressions from this ludicrous nation, though by the length of the war, as there is no evil which has not some good attending it, they are pretty well worn out and forgotten. I remember the time when some of our wellbred country-women kept their Valet-de Chambre, because forsooth, a man was much more handy about them than one of their own sex. I myself have seen one of these male Abigails tripping about the room with a looking-glass in his hand, and combing his lady's hair a whole morning toge.. ther. Whether or no there was any truth in the story of a lady's being got with child by one of these her handmaids I cannot tell, but I think at present the whole race of them is extinct in our own country. About the time that several of our fex were taken into this kind of service, the ladies likewife brought up the fashion of receiving vifits in their beds. It was then look'd upon as a piece of illbreeding for a woman to refuse to fee a man, because she was not stirring; and a porter would have been thought unfit for his place, that could have made so awkward an excuse. As I love to see every thing that is new, I once prevailed upon my friend Will Honeycomb to carry me along with him to one of these travelled ladies, defiring him, at the fame time, to present me as a foreigner who could not speak English, that so I might not be obliged to bear a part in the discourse. The lady, thous though willing to appear undrest, had put on her best looks, and painted herself for our reception, Her hair appeared in a very nice disorder, as the night-gown which was thrown upon her shoulders was ruffled with great care. For my part, I am so shocked with every thing that looks immodest in the fair fex, that I could not forbear taking off my eye from her when the moved in her bed, and was in the greatest confufion imaginable every time she stirred a leg or an arm. As the coquetres, who introduced this custom, grew old, they 12ft it off by degrees; well knowing that a woman of threefcore may kick and tumble her heart out without making any impreffions. Sempronia is at present the most profest admirer of the French nation, but is fo modest as to admit her visitants no farther than her toilet. It is a very odd fight that beautiful creature makes, when she is talking politics with her tresses flowing about her shoulders, and examining that face in the glass which does such execution upon all the male standers-by. How prettily does she divide her discourse between her woman and her vifitants! What sprightly transitions does she make from an opera or a fermon, to an ivory comb or a pin-cushion? How have I been pleased to fee her interrupted in an account of her travels, by a mesfage to her footman; and holding her tongue in the midst of a moral reflection, by applying the tip of it to a patch? There is nothing which exposes a woman to greater dangers, than, that gaiety and airiness of temper, which are natural to most of the sex. It should be therefore the concern of every wife and virtuous woman, to keep this sprightliness from degenerating into levity. On the contrary, the whole difcourse and behaviour of the French is to make the fex more fantastical, or, as they are pleased to term it, 'more awakened,' than is confiftent either with virtue or difcretion. To fpeak loud in public assemblies, to let every one hear you talk of things that should only be mentioned in private, or in whisper, are looked upon as parts a refined education. At the fame time a blush is unfashionable, and filence more ill-bred than any thing that can be fpoken. In short, difcretion and modesty, which in all other ages and countries have been regarded as the greatest ornaments of the fair fex, are confidered as the ingredients of narrow conversation and family behaviour. Some years ago I was at the tragedy of Mac beth, and unfortunately placed myself under a woman of quality that is since dead; who, as I found by the noise she made, was newly returned from France, A little before the rifing of the curtain, she broke out into a loud foliloquy, "When will the dear witches enter?" and immediately upon their first appearance, afked a lady that fat three boxes from her, on her right-hand, if those witches were not charming creatures. A little after, as Betterton was in one of the finest speeches of the play, the thook her fan at another lady, who fat as far on her left-hand, and told her with a whisper that might be heard all over the pit, we must not expect to fee Balloon to-night. Not long after, calling out to a young baronet by his name, who fat three feats before me, the afked him whether Macbeth's wife was till alive; and before he could give an answer, fell a talking of the ghost of Panquo. She had by this time formed a little audience to herfit and fixed the attention of all about her. But as I had a mind to hear the play, I out of the iphere of her impertinence, and planted myself in one of the remoteft corners of the pit. This pretty childishness of behaviour is one of the most refined parts of coquetry, and is not to be attained in perfection by ladies that do not travel for their improvement. A natural and unconstrained behaviour has fomething in it so agreeable, that it is no wonder to see people endeavouring after it. But at the same time, it is so very hard to hit, when it is not born with us, that people often make themselves ridiculous in attempting it. A very ingenious French author tells us, that the ladies of the court of France, in his time, thought it ill-breeding, and a kind of female pe dantry, to pronounce an hard word right; for which reason they took frequent occafion to use hard words, that they might shew a politeness in murdering them. He further adds, that a lady of fome quality at court, having accidentally made use of an hard word in a proper place, and pronounced it right, the whole assembly was out of countenance for her. I must however be so just as to own, that there are many ladies who have travelled feveral thoufands of miles without being the worse for it, and have brought home with them all the modesty, difcretion, and good fenfe, that they went abroad with. As on the contrary, there are great numbers of travelled ladies, who have lived all their days within the fmoke of London. I have known a woman that never was out of the parish of St. James's betray as many foreign fopperies in her carriage, as the could have gleaned up in half the countries of Europe, No 46, C MONDAY, APRIL 23. Non bene junctarum difcordia semina rerum, OVID. Met. i. 9. W HEN I The jarring feeds of ill-conforted things. want materials for this paper, it is my custom to go abroad' in quest of game; and when I meet any proper fubject, take the first opportunity of fetting down an hint of it upon paper. At the same time I look into the letters of my correfpondents, and if I find any thing fuggested in them that may afford matter of speculation, I likewise enter a minute of it in my collection of materials. By this means I frequent ly carry about me a whole sheet-full of hints, that would look like a rhapsody of nonfenfe to any body but myself; there is nothing in them but obscurity and confufion, raving and inconfiftency. In short, they are my speculations in the first principles, that, like the world in its chaos, áre void of all light, diftinction and order. About a week fince there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason of one of these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped at Lloy'd's coffee-house, where the auctions are usually kept. Before I missed it, there was a cluster of people who had found it, and were oiverting themselves with it at one end of the coffee-house: it had raised so much laughter among them before I had observed what they were about, that I had not the courage to own it. The boy of the coffee-house, when they had done with it, carried it about in his hand, asking every body if they had dropped a written paper; but nobody challenging it, he was ordered by those merry genthe |