relations, who give themselves no farther trouble about calling me by my name or quality, but speak of me very currently by Mr. What-d'ye-call-him.

To make up for thefe trivial difadvantages, I have the high fatisfaction of beholding all naturė with an unprejudiced eye; and, having nothing to do with mens paffions or interefts, I can with the greater fagacity confider their talents, manners, failings, and merits.

It is remarkable, that thofe who want any one fense, poffefs the others with greater force and vivacity. Thus my want of, or rather refignation of fpeech, gives me all the advantages of a dumb man. I have, methinks, a more than ordinary penetration in feeing; and flatter myself that I have looked into the higheft and loweft of mankind, and make fhrewd gueffes, without being admitted to their converfation, at the inmoft thoughts and reflections of all whom I behold. It is from hence that good or ill fortune has no manner of force towards affecting my judgment. I fee men flourishing in courts, and languishing in jails, without being prejudiced from their circumftances to their favour or difadvantage; but, from their inward manner of bearing their condition, often pity the profperous, and admire the unhappy.

Those who converfe with the dumb, know from the turn of their eyes, and the changes of their countenance, their fentiments of the objects before them. I have indulged my filence to fuch an extratravagance, that the few who are intimate with me, anfwer my fmiles with concurrent fentences, and argue to the very point I shaked my head at, without my fpeaking. WILL HONEYCOMB was very entertaining the other night at a play, to a gentleman who fat on his right hand, while I was at his left. The gentleman believed WILL was talking to himfelf, 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 will allow, a very pleafing afpect, but methinks, ⚫ that fimplicity in her countenance is rather childish than innocent.' When I obferved her a fecond time, he faid, I grant her drefs 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 to be commended for the elegance of her drefs, as a wit for that of his language; yet if she has stolen the colour of her ribbands from another, or had advice about her trimmings, I fhall not allow her the praise of drefs. any more than I would call a plagiary an author.' When I threw my eye towards the next woman to her, WILL fpoke what I looked, according to his romantic imagination, in the following manner:

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6

Behold, you who dare, that charming virgin; ⚫ behold the beauty of her perfon chaftifed by the innocence of her thoughts. Chaftity, goodnature, and affability, are the graces that play in her countenance; the knows he is handsome, • but she knows fhe is good. Confcious beauty adorned with confcious virtue! what a fpirit is there in thofe eyes! what a bloom in that person! how is the whole woman exprcffed 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 thoughtlefs creatures who make up the lump of that sex, and move a knowing eye no more than the portraitures of infignificant people by ordinary painters, 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 difcourfe with any but my particular friends, and not in public even with them. Such an habit has perhaps raised in me uncommon reflections; but this effect I cannot communicate

but

but by my writings. As my pleasures are almost wholly confined to thofe of the fight, I take it for a peculiar happinefs that I have always had an eafy and familiar admittance to the fair fex. If I never praised or flattered, I never belied or contradicted them. As thefe compofe half the world, and are, by the just complaifance and gallantry of our nation, the more powerful part of our people, I fhall dedicate a confiderable part of thefe my fpeculations to their fervice, and fhall 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 ftyle and air fuitable to their understanding. When I fay this, I must be understood to mean, that I fhall not lower but exalt the fubjects I treat upon. Discourse, for their entertainment, is not to be debafed but refined. A man may appear learned without talking fentences, as in his ordinary gefture he difcovers he can dance, though he does not cut capers. In a word, I fhall take it for the greateft glory of my work, if among reafonable women this paper may furnish tea-table-talk. In order to it I fhall treat on matters which relate to females, as they are concerned to approach or fly from the other fex, or as they are tied to them by blood, intereft, or affection. Upon this occafion I think it but reafonable to declare, that whatever skill I may have in fpeculation, I fhall never betray what the eyes of lovers fay to each other in my prefence. At the fame time I fhall not think myfelf obliged, by this promife, to conceal any falfe proteftations which I obferve made by glances in public affemblies; but endeavour to make both fexes appear in their conduct what they are in their hearts. By this means, love, during the time of my fpeculations, fhall be carried on with the fame fincerity as any other affairs of lefs confideration. As this is the greateft concern, men fhall be from henceforth

liable to the greateft reproach for misbehaviour in it. Falfhood in love fhall hereafter bear a blacker afpect than infidelity in friendship, or villany in bufinefs. For this great and good end, all breaches against that noble paffion, the cement of fociety, fhall be feverely examined. But this, and all other matters loosely hinted at now, and in my former papers, shall have their proper place in my following difcourfes: The prefent writing is only to admonifh the world, that they fhall not find me an idle but a bufy fpectator.

No 5.

TUESDAY, MARCH 6.

Spectatum admiffi rifum teneatis ?.

R

HOR, Ars Poet, ver. 5. Admitted to the fight, wou'd you not laugh?

AN opera may be allowed to be extravagantly

lavish in its decorations, as its only defign is to gratify the fenfes, and keep up an indolent attention in the audience. Common fenfe however requires, that there should be nothing in the scenes and machines which may appear, childish and abfurd. How would the wits of King Charles's time have laughed to have feen Nicolini expofed to a tempeft in robes of ermine, and failing in an open boat upon a fea of pafteboard? What a field of rallery would they have been let into, had they been entertained with painted dragons fpitting wildfire, enchanted chariots drawn by Flanders mares, and real cascades in artificial landfcapes? A little fkill in criticifm would inform us, that fhadows and realities ought not to be mixed together in the fame piece; and that the fcenes, which are defigned as the reprefentations of nature, fhould be filled with refemblances, and not with the things themselves. If one would reprefent a wide champaign-country

filled with herds and flocks, it would be ridiculous. to draw the country only upon the scenes, and to crowd. feveral parts of the ftage with fheep and exen. This is joining together inconsistencies, and making the decoration partly real and partly imaginary. I would recommend what I have faid here. to the directors, as well as to the admirers of our modern opera.

As I was walking in the streets about a fornight ago, I faw an ordinary fellow carrying a cage full of little birds upon his fhoulders; and, as I was. wondering with myself what ufe he would put them to, he was met very luckily by an acquaintance, who had the fame curiofity. Upon his afking him what he had upon his fhoulders, he told him that. he had been buying fparrows for the opera. Sparrows for the opera, fays his friend, licking his lips, what, are they to be roafted? No, no, fays the other, they are to enter towards the end of the first act, and to fly about the ftage.

the

This ftrange dialogue awakened my curiofity fo far, that I immediatey bought the opera, by which means I perceived that the fparrows were to act the part of finging birds in a delightful grove; though, upon a nearer inquiry, I found the fparrows put fame trick upon the audience, that Sir Martin Marall practifed upon his mistress; for though they flew in fight, the mufic proceeded from a confort of flagelets and bird-calls which were planted behind the scenes. At the fame time I made this difcovery, I found by the difcourfe of the actors, that there were great defigns on foot for the improvement of the opera; that it had been propofed to break down a part of the wall, and to furprise the audience with a party of an hundred horfe, and that there was actually a project of bringing the new-river into the houfe, to be employed in jetteaus and water-works. This project, as I have fince heard, is poftponed until the fammer-feafon; when