great heaps of gold on either fide 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 defolation that had been made before me, the whole scene vanished: In the room of the frightful spectres, there now entered a fecond dance of apparitions, very agreeably matched together, and made ur of very amiable phantoms. The first pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand; the fecond was Moderation, leading in Religion, and the third a person whom I had never feen, with the genius of Great Britain. At the first entrance the Lady revived, the bags swelled to their former bulk, the piles of faggots and heaps of paper changed into pyramids of guincas: and for my own part, I was so transported with joy, that I awaked, though, I must confefs, I would fain have fallen afleep again to have closed my vision, if

could have done it.

N° 4. MONDAY, MARCH 5. ---Egregii mortalem altique filenti?

C.

Hør. Sat. 6. 1. 2. v. 58. One of uncommon filence and referve.

A

N 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 liften after my own fame; and as I have sometimes met with circumstances which did not difplease me, I have been encountered by others which gave me as 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 a fet a-going by some paragraph in a news-paper: fuch perfons are very acceptable to a young author, for they defire no more in any thing but to be new to be agreeable. If I found confolation among such, I was as much disquieted by the incapacity of others. These are mortals who have a certain curiofity without power of reflection, and perused my papers like spectators rather than readers. But there is fo little pleasure in inquiries that so nearly concern ourselves (it being the wont way in the world to fame, to be too anxious about it) that upon the whole I refolved 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 fatisfying our own minds in what we do. One would think a filent man, who concerned himself with no one breathing, should be very little liable to misinterpretations; and yet I remember I was once taken up for a Jefuit, for no other reason but my profound taciturnity. It is from this misfortune, that to be out of harm's way, I have ever fince affected crowds. He who comes into assemblies only to gratify his curiofity, and not to make a figure, enjoys the pleasures of retirement in a more exquifite 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 paffions

To make up for these trivial disadvantages, I have the high fatisfaction of beholding all nature with an unprejudiced eye; and having nothing to do with men's passions or interefts, I can with the greater sagacity.confider their talents, manners, failings, and me

rits.

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 make shrewd guesses, without being. admitted to their conversation, at the inmost thoughts and restections of all whom I behold. It is from hence that good or ill fortune has no manner of force towards affecting my judgment. I see men flourishing in courts, and languishing in jails, without being prejudiced from their circumstances to their favour or disadvantage; but from their inward manner of bearing their condition, often pity the profperous, and admire the unhappy.

Those who converse with the dumb, know from the turn of their eyes, and the changes of their countenances, their sentiments of the objects before them. I have indulged my filence 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 fpeaking. Wilb 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 faid, " I am quite " of another opinion. She has, I allow, a very pleasing aspect, but methinks that fimplicity in her countenance is rather childish than in

"

party of an hundred horse, and that there was actually a project of bringing the New-River into the house, to be employed in jetteaus and waterworks. This project, as I have fince heard, i poftponed till the fummer-feason; when it is thought the coolness that proceeds from fountains and cafcades will be more acceptable and refreshing to people of quality. In the mean time, to find out a more agreeable entertainment for the winter-feason, the opera of Rinaldo is filled with thunder and lightening, illuminations and fire-works; which the audience may look upon without catching cold, and indeed, without much danger of being burnt; for there are several engines filled with water, and ready to play at a minute's warning, in case any fuch accident should happen. However, as I have a very great friendship for the owner of this theatre, I hope that he has been wife enough to insure his house before he would let this opera be acted in it.

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 Caffani (as we learn from the perfons reprefented) a Chriftian-conjurer (Mago Chriftiano). I must confefs I am very much puzzled to find 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.

८

To consider the poet after the conjurer, I shall give you a taste of the Italian from the first lines of his preface. Eccoti, benigno lettore, un parto di poche fere, che se ben nato di notte, non é peró aborto di tenebre, má fi fará conoscere figlio d'Apoio con qualche raggio di Parnaffo. 'Behold, gentle reader, the birth of a few evenings, which, tho' ' it be the offspring of the night, is not the abor' tive of darkness, but will make itself known to 'be the fon of Apollo, with a certain ray of Parnaffus. He afterwards proceeds to call Mynheer Handel the Orpheus of our age, and to acquaint us, in the fame sublimity of stile, that he composed this opera in a fortnight, Such are the wits to whose taftes we so ambitiously conform ourselves. The truth of it is, the finest writers among the modern Italians express themfelves in fuch a florid form of words, and fuch tedious cir. cumlocutions, as are used by none but pedants in our own country; and at the fame time fill their writings with fuch poor imaginations and conceits, as our youths are ashamed of before they have been two years at the university, Some may be apt to think that it is the difference of genius which produces the difference in the works of the two nations; but to shew there is nothing in this, if we look into the writings of the old Italians, such as Cicero and Virgil, we shall find that the English writers, in their way of thinking and expreffing themselves, resemble those authors much more than the modern Italians pretend to do. And as for the poet himself, from whom the dreams of this opera are taken, I must intirely agree with Monfieur Boileau, that one verse in Virgil is worth all the Clincant or Tinfel of Taffo.

But to return to the sparrows; there have been so many flights of them let loofe in this opera, that it is feared the house will never get rid of them; and that in other plays they may make their entrance in very wrong and improper scenes,

so as to be seen flying in a Lady's bed-chamber, or perching upon a King's throne; besides the inconveniencies which the heads of the audiences may fometimes fuffer from them. I am credibly informed, that there was once a design of cafting into an opera the story of Whittington and his cat, and that in order to it, there had been got together a great quantity of mice; but Mr. Rich, the proprietor of the play-house, very prudently confider'd that it would be impossible for the cat to kill them all, and that confequently the princes of the stage might be as much infefted with mice, as the prince of the island was before the cat's arrival upon it; for which reason he would not permit it to be acted in his house. And indeed I cannot blame him; for, as he faid very well upon that occasion, I do not hear that any of the performers in our opera pretend to equal the famous pied piper, who made all the mice of a great town in Germany follow his mufic, and by that means cleared the place of those little noxious animals

Before I dismiss this paper, I must inform my reader, that I hear there is a treaty on foot with London and Wife (who will be appointed gardeners of the play-house) to furnish the opera of Rinaldo and Armida with an orange-grove; and that the next time it is acted, the singing-birds will be personated by tom-tits; the undertakers being. resolved to spare neither pains nor money for the gratification of the audience.

No. 6. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7.
Credebant boc grande nefas, & morte piandum,
Si juvenis vetulo non affurrexerat

C.

Juv. Sat. xiii. 34 'Twas impious then (so much was age rever'd) For youth to keep their feat, when an old man appear'd.

I

KNOW no evil under the fun so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common. It has diffused itself through both fexe: and all qualities of mankind; and there is hardly that perfon to be found, who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. But this unhappy affectation of being wife rather than honest, witty than good-natur'd, is the fource of most of the ill habits of life. Such false imprefions are owing to the abandoned writings of tmen of wit, and the aukward imitation of the rest of mankind.

For this reafon Sir Roger was saying last night, that he was of opinion none but men of fine parts deferve to be hanged. The reflections of fuch men are fo delicate upon all occurrences which they are concerned in, that they should be expoted to more than ordinary infamy and punith ment for offending against such quick admonitions as their own fouls give them, and blunting the Ane edge of their minds in fuch a manner, that they are no more shocked at vice and folly, than men of flower capacities. There is no greater monster in being, than a very ill man of great parts; he lives like a man in a palfy, with one fide of him dead, While perhaps he enjoys the fatisfaction of luxury, of wealth, of ambition, he has loft the taste of good-will, of friendship, of innocence. Scarecrow, row, the beggar in Lincola's-inn-Fields, wie difabled himfelt in his

right leg, and asks alms all day to get himself a warm fupper and a trull at night, is not half so defpicable a wretch as such a man of fenfe. The beggar has no relish above sensations; he finds reft more agreeable than motion; and while he has a warm fire and his doxy, never reflects that he deferves to be whipped. Every man who terminates his fatisfactions and enjoyments within the fupply of his own neceffities and paffions, is, fays Sir Roger, in my eye, as poor a rogue as Scarecrow. But, continued he, for the lofs of public and private virtue, we are beholden to your men of parts forsooth; it is with them no matter what is done, so it be done with an air. But to me, who am fo whimsical in a corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason, a felfish man, in the most shining circumstance and equipage, appears in the fame condition with the fellow above-mentioned, but more contempt ble, in proportion to what more he robs the public of, and enjoys above him. I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to move together; that every action of any importance, is to have a profpect of public good; and that the general tendency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good breeding; without this, a man, as I before have hinted, is hopping instead of walking, he is not in his intire and proper mo

tion.

While the honeft knight was thus bewildering himself in good starts, I looked attentively upon him, which made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. What I aim at, fays he, is to represent, that I am of opinion, to polish our understandings and neglect our manners, is of all things the most inexcufable. Reason should govern paffion, but instead of that, you fee, it is often fubfervient to it; and as unaccountable as one would think it, a wife man is not always a good man. This degeneracy is not only the gift of particular perfons, but at some times of a whole people: and perhaps it may appear upon examination, that the most polite ages are the least virtuous. This may be attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as merit in themselves, without confidering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule, not so much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this falfe beauty will not país upon men of honest minds and true taste: Sir Richard Blackmore says, with as much good sense as virtue, " It is a mighty dishonour and shame to employ "excellent faculties and abundance of wit to hu"mour and please men in their vices and follies. "The great enemy of mankind, notwithstanding "his wit and angelic faculties, is the most odi

ous being in the whole creation. He goes on foon after to say very generoutly, that he undertook the writing of his poem " to rescue the Mu"fes out of the hands of ravishers, to reftore "them to their sweet and chafte mansions, and " to engage them in an employment suitable "to their dignity." This certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who appears in public, and whoever does not proceed upon that foundation, injures his country as fast as he fucceeds in his studies. When modesty ceases to be the chief ornament of one fex, and integrity of the other, fociety is upon a wrong bafs, and we shall be ever after without rules to guide our judgment in what is really becoming and ornamental, Nature and reaton direst ore thing, passion and hu

mour another: to follow the dictates of the two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is delightful, and what we aim at eafily attainable.

I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a nation as any in the world; but any man who thinks can easily fee, that the affectation of being gay and in fashion, has very near eaten up our good fenfe and our religion. Is their any thing so just, as that mode and gallantry should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable to the institutions of justice and pięty among us? And yet is there any thing more common than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All which is fupported by no other pretenfion, than that it is done with what we call a good grace.

Nothing ought to be held laudable or becom

ing, but what nature itfelf should prompt us to think so, Refpeét to all kind of fuperiors is founded, methinks, upon instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as age? I make this abrupt tranfition to the mention of this vice more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious.

It happened at Athens, during a public re'presentation of some play exhibited in honour ' of the common-wealth, that an old Gentleman 'came too late for a place suitable to his age and 'quality. Many of the young gentlemen, who ' observed the difficulty and confufion he was in, 'made figns to him that they would accommo' date him if he came where they fat: the good 'man bustled thro' the croud accordingly; but when he came to the feats to which he was in

vited, the jest was to fit close, and expose him, 'as he stood out of countenance, to the whole au'dience. The frolic went round all the Atheni'an benches. But on those occafions there were

G

OING yesterday to dine with an old ac▼ quaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon afking him the occafion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a strange dream the night before, which they were afraid portended some misfortune to themselves or their children. At her coming into the room I observed a fettled mehrcholy in her countenance, which I should have been troubled for, had I not heard from whence ir proceeded. We were no fooner fat