"SIR, July 5, 1711. "In your Spectator of June the 27th, you transcribe a letter sent to you from a new sort of muster-master, who teaches ladies the whole exercise of the fan. I have a daughter just come to town, who though she has always held a fan in her hand at proper times, yet she knows no more how to use it according to true discipline, than an awkward school-boy does to make use of his new sword. I have sent for her on purpose to learn the exercise, she being already very well accomplished in all other arts which are necessary for a young lady to understand; my request is, that you will speak to your correspondent on my behalf, and in your next paper let me know what he expects, either by the month or the quarter for teaching; and where he keeps his place of rendezvous. I have a son too, whom I would fain have taught to gallant fans, and should be glad to know what the gentleman will have for teaching them both, I finding fans for practice at my own expense. This information will in the highest manner oblige, Sir, your most humble servant, "WILLIAM WISEACRE." "As soon as my son is perfect in this art (which I hope will be in a year's time, for the boy is pretty apt), I design he shall learn to ride the great horse (although he is not yet above twenty years old), if his mother, whose darling he is, will venture him." 66 To THE SPECTATOR. "The humble Petition of Benjamin Easy, Gent. SHOWETH, That it was your petitioner's misfortune to walk to Hackney church last Sunday, where to his great amazement he met with a soldier of your own training; she furls a fan, recovers a fan, and goes through the whole exercise of it to admiration. This well-managed officer of yours has, to my knowledge, been the ruin of above five young gentlemen beside myself, and still goes on laying waste wheresoever she comes, whereby the whole village is in great danger. Our humble request is therefore, that this bold Amazon be ordered immediately to lay down her arms, or that you would issue forth an order, that we who have been thus injured may meet at the place of general rendezvous, and there be taught to manage our snuff-boxes, in such a manner as we may be an equal match for her; " And your petitioner shall ever pray," etc. R. Let brevity dispatch the rapid thought. I HAVE Somewhere read of an eminent person, who used in his private offices of devotion to give thanks to Heaven that he was born a Frenchman for my own part, I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman. Among many other reasons, I think myself very happy in my country, as the language of it is wonderfully adapted to a man who is sparing of his words, and an enemy to loquacity. As I have frequently reflected on my good for tune in this particular, I shall communicate to the public my speculations on the English tongue, not doubting but they will be acceptable to all my curious readers. The English delight in silence more than any other European nation, if the remarks which are made on us by foreigners are true. Our discourse is not kept up in conversation, but falls into more pauses and intervals than in our neighboring countries; as it is observed, that the matter of our writings is thrown much closer together, and lies in a narrower compass than is usual in the works of foreign authors; for, to favor our natural taciturnity, when we are obliged to utter our thoughts, we do it in the shortest way we are able, and give as quick a birth to our conceptions as possible. This humor shows itself in several remarks that we may make upon the English language. As first of all by its abounding in monosyllables, which gives us an opportunity of delivering our thoughts in few sounds. This indeed takes off from the elegance of our tongue, but at the same time expresses our ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers the first design of speech better than the multitude of Syllables, which makes the words of other languages more tunable and sonorous. The sounds of our English words are commonly like those of string. music, short and transient, which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other languages are like the notes of wind instruments, sweet and swelling, and lengthened out into a variety of modulation. In the next place we may observe, that where the words are not monosyllables, we often make them so, so much as lies in our power, by our rapidity of pronunciation; as it generally happens in most of our long words which are derived from the Latin, where we contract the length of the syllables that gives them a grave and solemn air in their own language, to make them more proper for dispatch, and more conformable to the genius of our tongue. This we may find in a multitude of words, as "liberty, conspiracy, theater, orator,” etc. The same natural aversion to loquacity has of late years made a very considerable alteration in our language, by closing in one syllable the termination of our preterperfect tense, as in these words, "drown'd, walk'd, arriv'd," for "drowned, walked, arrived," which has very much disfigured the tongue, and turned a tenth part of our smoothest words into so many clusters of consonauts. This is the more remarkable, because the want of vowels in our language has been the general complaint of our politest authors, who nevertheless are the men that have made theso retrenchments, and consequently very much increased our former scarcity. This reflection on the words that end in ED, I have heard in conversation from one of the greatest 64 geniuses this age has produced.* I think we! may add to the foregoing observation, the change which has happened in our language, by the abbreviation of several words that are terminated in "eth," by substituting an s in the room of the last syllable, as in drowns, walks, arrives," and innumerable other words, which in the pronunciation of our forefathers were "drowneth, walketh, arriveth." This has wonderfully multiplied a letter which was before too frequent in the English tongue, and added to that hissing in our language, which is taken so much notice of by foreigners; but at the same time humors our taciturnity, and eases us of many superfluous syllables. I might here observe, that the same single letter on many occasions does the office of a whole word, and represents the "his" and "her" of our forefathers. There is no doubt but the ear of a foreigner, which is the best judge in this case, would very much disapprove of such innovations, which indeed we do ourselves in some measure, by retaining the old termination in writing, and in all solemn offices of our religion. As in the instances I have given we have epitomized many of our particular words to the detriment of our tongue, so on other occasions we have drawn two words into one, which has likewise very much untuned our language, and clogged it with consonants — as mayn't can't, shan't, won't," and the like, for "may not, cannot, shall not, will not," etc. I have only considered our language as it shows the genius and natural temper of the English, which is modest, thoughtful and sincere, and which perhaps may recommend the people, though it has spoiled the tongue. We might perhaps carry the same thought into other languages, and deduce a great part of what is peculiar to them from the genius of the people who speak them. It is certain, the light talkative humor of the French has not a little infected their tongue, which might be shown by many instances; as the genius of the Italians, which is so much addicted to music and ceremony, has moulded all their words and phrases to those particular uses. The stateliness and gravity of the Spaniards shows itself to perfection in the solemnity of their language; and the blunt honest humor of the German sounds better in the roughness of the High-Dutch, than it would in a politer tongue.-C. No. 136.] MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1711. A greater liar Parthia never bred. "I shall without any manner of preface or apology acquaint you, that I am, and ever have been, from my youth upward, one of the greatest liars It is perhaps this humor of speaking no more this island has produced. I have read all the mothan we needs must, which has so miserably cur- ralists upon the subject, but could never find any tailed some of our words, that in familiar writ- effect their discourses had upon me, but to add to ings and conversations they often lose all but my misfortune by new thoughts and ideas, and their first syllables, as in "mob, rep. pos. incog." making me more ready in my language, and capaand the like; and as all ridiculous words make ble of sometimes mixing seeming truths with iny their first entry into a language by familiar improbabilities. With this strong passion toward phrases, I dare not answer for these, that they falsehood in this kind, there does not live an honwill not in time be looked upon as a part of our ester man, or a sincerer friend; but my imaginatongue. We see some of our poets have been so tion runs away with me; and whatever is started, indiscreet as to imitate Hudibras's doggerel ex-I have such a scene of adventures appear in an pressions in their serious compositions, by throwing out the signs of our substantives which are essential to the English language. Nay, this humor of shortening our language had once run so far, that some of our celebrated authors, among whom we may reckon Sir Roger L'Estrange in particular, began to prune their words of all superfluous letters, as they termed them, in order to adjust the spelling to the pronunciation; which would have confounded all our etymologies, and have quite destroyed our tongue. We may here likewise observe, that our proper names, when familiarized in English, generally dwindle to monosyllables, whereas in other modern languages they receive a softer turn on this occasion, by the addition of a new syllable. Nick, in Italian, is Nicolini: Jack, in French, Jeannot; and so of the rest. instant before me, that I cannot help uttering them, though, to my immediate confusion, I cannot but know I am liable to be detected by the first man I meet. "Upon occasion of the mention of the battle of Pultowa, I could not forbear giving an account of a kinsman of mine, a young merchant who was bred at Moscow, that had too much mettle to attend books of entries and accounts, when there was so active a scene in the country where he resided, and followed the Czar as a volunteer. This warm youth (born at the instant the thing was spoken of) was the man who unhorsed the Swedish general; he was the occasion that the Muscovites kept their fire in so soldier-like a manner; and brought up those troops which were covered from the enemy at the beginning of the day; beside this, he had at last the good fortune to be the man who took Count There is another particular in our language Piper.+ With all this fire 1 knew my cousin to which is a great instance of our frugality of be the civilest creature in the world. He never words, and that is the suppressing of several par-made any impertinent show of his valor, and then ticles which must be produced in other tongues to he had an excellent genius for the world in every make a sentence intelligible. This perplexes the best writers, when they find the relatives whom,' which,' or 'they,' at their mercy, whether they may have admission or not; and will never be decided until we have something like an academy, that by the best authorities and rules drawn from the analogy of languages, shall settle all controversies between grammar and idiom. This was probably Dean Swift, who has made the same observation in his proposal for correcting, improving, and Ascertaining the English tongue, etc. See Swift's Works. other kind. I had letters from him (here I felt in my pockets) that exactly spoke the Czar's character, which I knew perfectly well; and I could not forbear concluding, that I lay with his imperial majesty twice or thrice a week all the while he lodged at Deptford. What is worse than all this, it is impossible to speak to me but Fought July 8, 1709, between Charles XII, of Sweden, and Peter I, Emperor of Russia; wherein Charles was entirely defeated. + Prime Minister of Charles XII. In the spring of the year 1698. you give me some occasion of coming out with one lie or other, that has neither wit, humor, prospect of interest, or any other motive that I can think of in nature. The other day, when one was commending an eminent and learned divine, what occasion in the world had I to say, 'Methinks he would look more venerable if he were not so fair a man?' I remember the company smiled. I have seen the gentleman since, and he is coal black. I have intimations every day in my life that nobody believes me; yet I am never the better. I was saying something the other day to an old friend at Will's coffee-house, and he made me no manner of answer; but told me that an acquaintance of Tully the orator having two or three times together said to him, without receiving any answer, that upon his honor he was but that very month forty years of age,' Tully answered, 'Surely you think me the most incredulous man in the world, if I do not believe what you have told me every day these ten years.' The mischief of it is I find myself wonderfully inclined to have been present at every occurrence that is spoken of before me; this has led me into many inconveniences, but indeed they have been the fewer, because I am no ill-natured man, and never speak things to any man's disadvantage. I never directly defame, but I do what is as bad in the consequence, for I have often made a man say such and such a lively expression, who was born a mere elder brother. When one has said in my hearing, such a one is no wiser than he should be,' I immediately have replied, 'Now 'faith, I cannot see that; he said a very good thing to my lord such-a-one, upon such an occasion,' and the like. Such an honest dolt as this has been watched in every expression he uttered, upon my recommendation of him, and consequently been subject to the more ridicule. I once endeavored to cure myself of this impertinent quality, and resolved to hold my tongue for seven days together; I did so; but then I had so many winks and unnecessary distortions of my face upon what anybody else said, that I found I only forbore the expression, and that I still lied in my heart to every man I met with. You are to know one thing (which I believe you will say is a pity considering the use I should have made of it), I never traveled in my life; but I do not know whether I could have spoken of any foreign country with more familiarity than I do at present, in company who are strangers to me. I have cursed the inns in Germany; commended the brothels at Ve nice the freedom of conversation in France; and though I was never out of this dear town, and fifty miles about it, have been three nights together dogged by bravos, for an intrigue with a cardinal's mistress at Rome. "It were endless to give you particulars of this kind; but I can assure you, Mr. Spectator, there are about twenty or thirty of us in this town-I mean by this town the cities of London and Westminster-I say there are in town a sufficient number of us to make a society among ourselves; and since we cannot be believed any longer, I beg of you to print this my letter, that we may meet together, and be under such regulation as there may be no occasion for belief or confidence among us. If you think fit, we might be called the historians, for liar is become a very harsh word. And that a member of the society may not hereafter be ill received by the rest of the world, I desire you would explain a little this sort of men, and not let us historians be ranked, as we are in the imaginations of ordinary people, among common fiars, makebates, impostors and incendiaries. For your instruction herein, you are to know that a historian in conversation is only a person of so pregnant a fancy, that he cannot be contented with ordinary occurrences. I know a man of quality of our order, who is of the wrong side of forty-three, and has been of that age, according to Tully's jest, for some years since, whose vein is upon the romantic. Give him the least occasion, and he will tell you something so very particular that happened in such a year, and in such company, where by-the-bye was present such a one, who was afterward made such a thing. Out of all these circumstances, in the best language in the world, he will join together with such probable incidents an account that shows a person of the deepest penetration, the honestest mind, and withal something so humble when he speaks of himself, that you would admire. Dear Sir, why should this be lying? there is nothing so instructive. He has withal the gravest aspect-something so very venerable and great! Another of these historians is a young man whom we would take in, though he extremely wants parts: as people send children (before they can learn anything) to school, to keep them out of harm's way He tells things which have nothing at all in them, and can neither please nor displease, but merely take up your time to no manner of purpose, no manner of delight; but he is good-natured, and does it because he loves to be saying something to you, and entertain you. I could name you a soldier that hath done very great things without slaughter; he is prodigiously dull and slow of head, but what he can say is forever false, so that we must have him. 66 Give me leave to tell you of one more, who is a lover; he is the most afflicted creature in the world lest what happened between him and a great beauty should ever be known. Yet again he comforts himself, 'Hang the jade her woman. If money can keep the slut trusty, I will do it, though I mortgage every acre; Antony and Cleopatra for that; All for Love and the World well Lost.' 'Then, Sir, there is my little merchant, honest Indigo of the 'Change, there is my man for loss and gain; there is tare and tret, there is lying all round the globe; he has such a prodigious intelligence, he knows all the French are doing, or what we intend or ought to intend, and has it from such hands. But, alas, whither am I running!— while I complain, while I remonstrate to you, even all this is a lie, and there is not one such person of quality, lover, soldier, or merchant, as I have now described in the whole world that I know of. But I will catch myself once in my life, and in spite of nature speak one truth, to wit, that I am, Your humble servant," etc. T. No. 137.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1711 At hæc etiam servis semper libera fuerunt, timerent, gauderent, dolerent, suo potius quam alterius arbitrio. TULL. Epist. Even slaves were always at liberty to fear, rejoice, and grieve, at their own rather than another's pleasure. Ir is no small concern to me, that I find so many complaints from that part of mankind whose portion it is to live in servitude, that those whom they depend upon will not allow them to be even as happy as their condition will admit of. There are, as these unhappy correspondents inform me, masters who are offended at a cheerful countenance, and think a servant is broke loose from them, if he does not preserve the utmost awe in their presence. There is one who says, if he looks satisfied, his master asks him, "What makes him so pert this morning?" if a little Bour, "Hark ye, Sirrah, are not you paid your to do, when our good lady, with all the patience "I am your loving friend, "PATIENCE GIDDY." These are great calamities; but I met the other day in the Five fields, toward Chelsea, a pleas- "I have read your Spectator of the third of the last month, and wish I had the happiness of being preferred to serve so good a master as Sir Roger. The character of my master is the very reverse of that good and gentle knight's. All his directions are given, and his mind revealed by way of contraries: as when anything is to be remembered, with a peculiar cast of face he cries, Be sure to forget now.' If I am to make haste back, 'Do not come these two hours; be sure to call by the way upon some of your companions.' Then another excellent way of his is, if he sets me anything to do, which he knows must necessarily take up half a day, he calls ten times in a quarter of an hour to know whether I have done yet. This is his manThere is something very unaccountable, that ner; and the same perverseness runs through all his actions, according as the circumstances vary. Be- people cannot put themselves in the condition of side all this, he is so suspicious, that he submits the persons below them, when they consider the himself to the drudgery of a spy. He is as unhap-commands they give. But there is nothing more py himself as he makes his servants; he is constantly watching us, and we differ no more in pleasure and liberty than as a jailer and a prisoner. He lays traps for faults; and no sooner makes a discovery, but falls into such language, as I am more ashamed of for coming from him, than for being directed to me. This, Sir, is a short sketch of a master I have served upward of nine years; and though I have never wronged him, I confess my despair of pleasing him has very much abated my endeavor to do it. If you will give me leave to steal a sentence out of my master's Clarendon, I shall tell you my case in a word, being used worse than I deserved, I cared less to deserve well than I had done.' "I am, Sir, your humble servant, "DEAR MR. SPECTER, reduced to it, would not be hired by any man liv- It would, perhaps, be running too far out of I more attendants. He said, One of my footmen WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1711. Utitur in re non dubia testibus non necessariis.-TULL. "I am the next thing to a lady's woman, and am under both my lady and her woman. I am so used by them both, that I should be very glad to see them in the Specter. My lady herself is of no mind in the world, and for that reason her woman is of twenty minds in a moment. My lady is one that never knows what to do with herself; she No. 138.] pulls on and puts off everything she wears twenty times before she resolves upon it for that day. I stand at one end of the room and reach things to her woman. When my lady asks for a thing, I hear, and have half brought it, when the woman meets me in the middle of the room to receive it, and at that instant she says, 'No, she will not have it.' Then I go back, and her woman comes up to her, and by this time she will have that and two or three things more in an instant. The woman and I run to each other; I am loaded and delivering the things to her, when my lady says she wants none of all these things, and we are the dullest creatures in the world, and she the unhap: piest woman living, for she shall not be dressed in any time. Thus we stand, not knowing what He uses unnecessary proofs in an Indisputable point. ONE meets now and then with persons who are extremely learned and knotty in expounding clear cases. Tully tells us of an author that spent some pages to prove that generals could not perform the great enterprises which have made them so illustrious, if they had not had men. He asserted also, it seems, that a minister at home, no more than a commander abroad, could do any thing without other men were his instruments and assistants. On this occasion he produces the example of Themistocles, Pericles, Cyrus, and Alexander himself, whom he denies to have been capable of effecting what they did, except they . had been followed by others. It is pleasant enough to see such persons contend without opponents, and triumph without victory. The author above-mentioned by the orator is placed forever in a very ridiculous light, and we neet every day in conversation such as deserve the same kind of renown, for troubling those with whom they converse with the like certainties. The persons that I have always thought to deserve the highest admiration in this kind are your ordinary story-tellers, who are most religiously careful of keeping to the truth in every particular circumstance of a narration, whether it concerns the main end or not. A gentleman whom I had the honor to be in company with the other day, upon some occasion that he was pleased to take, sai, he remembered a very pretty repartee made by a very witty man in King Charles's time upon the like occasion. "I remember," said he, upon entering into the tale, much about the time of Oates's plot, that a cousin-german of mine and I were at the Bear in Holborn. No, I am out, it was at the Cross-keys; but Jack Thomson was there, for he was very great with the gentleman who made the answer. But I am sure it was spoken somewhere thereabouts, for we drank a bottle in that neighborhood every evening; but no matter for all that, the thing is the same; but He was going on to settle the geography of the jest when I left the room, wondering at this odd turn of head, which can play away its words with uttering nothing to the purpose, still observing its own impertinences, and yet proceeding in them. I do not question but he informed the rest of his audience, who had more patience than I, of the birth and parentage, as well as the collateral alliauces of his family who made the repartee, and of him who provoked him to it. It is no small misfortune to any who have a just value for their time, when this quality of being so very circumstantial, and careful to be exact, happens to show itself in a man whose quality obliges them to attend his proofs that it is now day, and the like. But this is augmented when the same genius gets into authority, as it often does. Nay, I have known it more than once ascend the very pulpit. One of this sort taking it in his head to be a great admirer of Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Beveridge, never failed of proving out of these great authors, things which no man living would have denied him upon his own single authority. One day, resolving to come to the point in hand, he said, "According to that excellent divine" I will enter upon the matter, or in his words, in his fifteerth sermon of the folio edition, page 169, "I shall briefly explain the words, and then consider the matter contained in them." This honest gentleman needed not, one would think, strain his modesty so far as to alter his design of "entering upon the matter," to that of "briefly explaining." But so it was, that he would not even be contented with that authority, out added also the other divine to strengthen his method, and told us, with the pious and learned Dr. Beveridge, page 4th of his ninth volume, "I shall endeavor to make it as plain as I can from the words which I have now read, wherein for that purpose we shall consider- "This wiseacre was reckoned by the parish, who did not understand him, a most excellent preacher: but that he read too much, and was so humble that he did not trust enough to his own parts. Next to these ingenious gentlemen, who argue for what nobody can deny them, are to be ranked a sort of people who do not indeed attempt to prove insignificant things, but are ever laboring to raise arguments with you about matters you will give up to them without the least controversy. One of these people told a gentleman who said he saw Mr. Such-a-one go this morning at nine of the clock toward the Gravel-pits: "Sir, I must beg your pardon for that, for though I am very loth to have any dispute with you, yet I must take the liberty to tell you it was nine when I saw him at St. James's." When men of this genius are pretty far gone in learning, they will put you to prove that show is white, and when you are upon that topic can say that there is really no such thing as color in nature; in a word, they can turn what little knowledge they have into a ready capacity of raising doubts; into a capacity of being always frivolous and always unanswerable. It was of two disputants of this impertinent and laborious kind that the cynic said, "one of these fellows is milking a ram, and the other holds the pail." ADVERTISEMENT. "The exercise of the snuff-box, according to the most fashionable airs and motions, in opposition to the exercise of the fan, will be taught with the best plain or perfumed snuff, at Charles Lillie's, perfumer, at the corner of Beaufort's buildings, in the Strand, and attendance given for the benefit of the young merchants about the Exchange for two hours every day at noon, except Saturdays, at a toy-shop near Garraway's coffee-house. There will be likewise taught the ceremony of the snuffbox, or rules for offering snuff to a stranger, a friend, or a mistress, according to the degrees of familiarity or distance, with an explanation of the careless, the scornful, the politic, and the surly pinch, and the gestures proper to each of them. "N. B. The undertaker does not question but in a short time to have formed a body of regular snuff boxes ready to meet and make head against all the regiment of fans which have been lately disciplined, and are now in motion.”—T. No. 139.] THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1711. Vera gloria radices agit, atque etiam propagatur; ficta omnia celeriter, tanquam flosculi, decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum.-TULL. True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false prefeit last long. tenses, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counter Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent. According as this is cultivated in princes, it produces the greatest good or the greatest evil. Where sovereigns have it by impressions received from educa tion only, it creates an ambitious rather than a noble mind: where it is the natural bent of the prince's inclination, it prompts him to the pursuit of things truly glorious. The two greatest men now in Europe (according to the common acceptation of the word great) are Lewis King of France, and Peter Emperor of Russia. As it is certain that all fame does not arise from the practice of virtue, it is, methinks, no unpleasing amusement to examine the glory of these potentates, and distinguish that which is empty, perishing and fri volous, from what is solid, lasting, and important. Lewis of France had his infancy attended by crafty and worldly men, who made extent of territory the most glorious instance of power, and mistook the spreading of fame for the acquisition of honor. The young monarch's heart was by such conversation easily deluded into a fondness for vain glory, and upon these unjust principles |