He was buried, according to his own directions, among the family of the Coverlies, on the left hand of his father, Sir His burial. Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum; the whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits; the men in frieze and the women in riding-hoods. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from,

"Honored sir, your most sorrowful servant,

"" 'EDWARD BISCUIT."

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club.

Spectator

Here end my selections from Sir Roger. What fol- Other lows are other papers from the Spectator, ascribed to papers. Addison.

PARTY PATCHES.

About the middle of last winter I went to see an opera at the theater in the Haymarket, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed themselves in the opposite side boxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of battle-array one against another. After a short survey of them, I found that they were patched differently; the faces on one hand being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those upon the other on the left: I quickly perceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in those different situations as party signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middle boxes, between those two opposite bodies, were several ladies who patched indifferently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit there with no other intention but to see the opera. Upon inquiry I found that the body of Amazons on my right hand were Whigs and those on my left Tories ; and that those who had placed themselves in the middle boxes were a neutral party, whose faces had not yet declared themselves. These last, however, as I afterward found, diminished daily, and took their party with one side or the other; insomuch that I observed in several of them, the patches, which were before dispersed equally, are now all gone over to the Whig or the Tory side of the face.

Party patches.

When I was in the theater the time above mentioned I had Tory and Whig. the curiosity to count the patches on both sides, and found the Tory patches to be about twenty stronger than the Whig; but to make amends for this small inequality, I the next morning found the whole puppet-show filled with faces spotted after the Whiggish manner. Whether or no the ladies had retreated hither in order to rally their forces, I cannot tell; but the next night they came in so great a body to the opera, that they outnumbered the enemy.

Roman matrons.

This account of party patches will, I am afraid, appear improbable to those who live at a distance from the fashionable world; but as it is a distinction of a very singular nature, and what perhaps may never meet with a parallel, I think I should not have discharged the office of a faithful Spectator had I not recorded it.

When the Romans were pressed with a foreign enemy the ladies voluntarily contributed all their rings and jewels to assist the government under the public exigence, which appeared so laudable an action in the eyes of their countrymen, that from thenceforth it was permitted by a law to pronounce public orations at the funeral of a woman in praise of the deceased person, which till that time was peculiar to men.

Would our English ladies, instead of sticking on a patch against those of their own country, show themselves so truly public-spirited as to sacrifice every one her necklace against the common enemy, what decrees ought not to be made in favor of them!

Since I am recollecting upon this subject such passages as occur to memory out of ancient authors, I cannot omit a sentence in the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles, which he made in honor of those brave Athenians that were slain in a fight with the Lacedæmonians. After having addressed himself to the several ranks and orders of his countrymen, and shown them how they should behave themselves in the public cause, he turns to the female part of his audience; "And as for you (says he), I shall advise you in a very few words: aspire only to those virtues that are peculiar to your sex; follow your natural modesty, and think it your greatest commendation not to be talked of one way or other."

THE CAT-CALL,

I have lately received the following letter from a country gentleman:

"MR. SPECTATOR: The night before I left London I went to see a play, called 'The Humorous Lieutenant.' Upon the rising of the curtain I was very much surprised with the great consort of cat-calls which was exhibited that evening, and began to think with myself that I had made a mistake, and gone to a music-meeting instead of the play-house. It appeared, indeed, a little odd to me to see so many persons of quality of both sexes assembled together at a kind of caterwauling; for I cannot look upon that performance to have been anything better, whatever the musicians themselves might think of it. As I had no acquaintance in the house to ask questions of, and was forced to go out of town early the next morning, I could not learn the secret of this matter. What I would therefore desire of you, is, to give some account of this strange instrument, which I found the company called a cat-call; and particularly to let me know whether it be a piece of music lately come from Italy. For my own part, to be free with you, I would rather hear an English fiddle; though I durst not show my dislike whilst I was in the play-house, it being my chance to sit the very next man to one of the performers.

"I am, sir,

"Your most affectionate friend and servant,

"JOHN SHALLOW, Esq."

In compliance with Squire Shallow's request, I design this paper as a dissertation upon the cat-call. In order to make myself a master of the subject, I purchased one the beginning of last week, though not without great difficulty, being informed at two or three toy-shops that the players had lately bought them all up. I have since consulted many learned antiquaries in relation to its original, and find them very much divided among themselves upon that particular. A Fellow of the Royal Society, who is my good friend and a great proficient in the mathematical part of music, concludes from the simplicity of its make and the uniformity of its sound that the cat-call is older than any of the inventions of Jubal. observes very well that musical instruments took their first rise

The cat-call.

Invention of He Jubal.

Orpheus.

London cries.

from the notes of birds and other melodious animals; and what, says he, was more natural than for the first ages of mankind to imitate the voice of a cat that lived under the same roof with them? he added, that the cat had contributed more to harmony than any other animal, as we are not only beholden to her for this wind-instrument, but for our string music in general.

Another virtuoso of my acquaintance will not allow the cat-call to be older than Thespis, and is apt to think it appeared in the world soon after the ancient comedy; for which reason it has still a place in our dramatic entertainments; nor must I here omit what a curious gentleman, who is lately returned from his travels, has more than once assured me, namely, that there was lately dug up at Rome the statue of a Momus, who holds an instrument in his right hand very much resembling our modern cat-call.

There are others who ascribe this invention to Orpheus, and look upon the cat-call to be one of those instruments which that famous musician made use of to draw the beasts about him. It is certain that the roasting of a cat does not call together a greater audience of that species than this instrument if dexterously played upon in proper time and place.

But notwithstanding these various and learned conjectures, I cannot forbear thinking that the cat-call is originally a piece of English music. Its resemblance to the voice of some of our British songsters, as well as to the use of it, which is peculiar to our nation, confirms me in this opinion. It has at least received great improvements among us, whether we consider the instrument itself or those several quavers and graces which are thrown into the playing of it. Every one might be sensible of this who heard that remarkable, over-grown catcall which was placed in the center of the pit, and presided over all the rest, at the celebrated performance lately exhibited in Drury Lane.

LONDON CRIES.

There is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner and frights a country squire than the cries of London. My good friend Sir Roger often declares that he cannot get them out of his head or go to sleep for them, the first week that he is in town. On the contrary, Will Honeycomb calls them the

Ramage de la Ville, and prefers them to the sounds of larks and nightingales, with all the music of the fields and woods. I have lately received a letter from some very odd fellow upon this subject, which I shall leave with my reader, without saying anything further of it.

"SIR: I am a man out of all business, and would willingly turn my head to anything for an honest livelihood. I have invented several projects for raising many millions of money without burthening the subject, but I cannot get the parliament to listen to me, who look upon me, forsooth, as a crack and a projector; so that despairing to enrich either myself or my country by this public spiritedness, I would make some proposals to you relating to a design which I have very much at heart, and which may procure me an handsome subsistence, if you will be pleased to recommend it to the cities of London and Westminster.

"The post I would aim at is to be Comptroller-general of the London Cries, which are at present under no manner of rules Comptrodergeneral. or discipline. I think I am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great insight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent skill in music.

"The cries of London may be divided into vocal and instrumental. As for the latter, they are at present under a very great disorder. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street, for an hour together, with the twankling of a brass kettle or of a frying pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds as much as the breaking in of a thief. I would therefore propose that no instrument of this nature should be made use of which I have not tuned and licensed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her majesty's liege subjects.

that there

measure.

"It is a great imperfection in our London cries is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news Time and should, indeed, be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should not, however, be cried with the same precipitation as 'fire'; yet this is generally the case. A bloody battle alarms the town from one end to another in an instant. Every motion of the French is published in so great a hurry that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likewise I would take upon me to