acknowledge my want of meit, and for that reason • fhall endeavour at all times to make up my own failures, by introducing and recommending to the club perfons of more undoubted qualifications than I can pretend to. I 'fhall next week come down in the ftage coach, in order 6 to take my feat at the board; and fhall bring with me a candidate of each fex. The perfons I fhall prefent to you, are an old beau and a modern Pict. If they are not fo eminently gifted by nature as our affembly expects, give me leave to fay, their acquired uglinefs is greater • than any that has ever appeared before you. The beau ⚫has varied his drefs every day of his life for thefe thirty years laft paft, and ftill added to the deformity he was born with. The Pict has fill greater merit towards us, and has, ever fince the came to years of difcretion, ⚫ deferted the handsome party, and taken all.poffible pains to acquire the face in which I fhall prefent her to your confideration and favour. I am, Gentlemen, Your most obliged humble fervant, P. SI DESIRE to know whether you admit people of quality. 6 Mr. SPECTATOR, April 17. O fhew you there are among us of the vain weak fex, fome that have honefty and fortitude enough to dare to be ugly, and willing to be thought fo; I apply myself to you, to beg your interest and recommendation to the Ugly Club. If my own word will not be taken, (though in this cafe a woman's may), I can bring credible witneffes of my qualifications for their company, ' whether they infist upon hair, forehead, eyes, cheeks, For chin; to which I'muft add, that I find it easier to lean to my left fide, than my right. I hope I am in all refpects agreeable: and for humour and mirth, I'll keep up to the prefident himself. All the favour I'll pretend • to is, that as I am the first woman has appeared defirous of good company and agreeable converfation, I may take and keep the upper end of the table. And indeed I think they want a carver, which I can be after as ugly a manuer as they can with. I defire your thoughts of my • claim claim as foon as you can. Add to my features the length of my face, which is full half-yard; though I never knew the reasons of it till you gave one for the shortness of C yours. If I knew a name ugly enough to belong to the above defcribed face, I would feign one; but, to my unfpeakable misfortune, my name is the only difagreeable prettinefs about me; so prithee make one for me that fignifies all the deformity in the world; you under• ftand Latin, but be fure bring it in with my being, in the fincerity of my heart, Your moft frightful admirer, and fervant, HECATISSA. Mr. SPECTATOR, READ your difcourfe upon affectation, and from the T remarks made in it, examined my own heart fo ftrictly, that I thought I had found out its moft fecret distemper, and will my mind for ever from a folly. For the charity received I return my thanks this way. Your most humble fervant. SIR, WE Epping, April 18. 7E have your papers here the morning they come out, and we have been very well entertained with your last, upon the falfe ornaments of perfons who reprefent heroes in a tragedy. What made your speculation come very feasonably among us is, that we have now at this place a company of ftrollers, who are very <far from offending in the impertinent fplendor of the ' drama. They are fo far from falling into thefe falfe gallantries, that the ftage is here in its original fituation ' of a cart. Alexander the great was acted by a fellow in a paper cravat. The next day, the Earl of Effex feemed to have no diftrefs but his poverty: and my Lord Fop- & pington the fame morning wanted any better means to fhew himfelf a fop, than by wearing ftockings of dif ferent colours. In a word, though they have had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are ftill fo wretchedly poor, that without you can prevail to fend us the furniture you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like sturdy beggars, and the heroines gypfies. • We have had but one part which was performed and dreffed with propriety, and that was Juftice Clodpate: this was fo well done that it offended Mr. Juftice Overdo, < who in the midft of our whole audience, was like Quixote in the puppet-fhow, fo highly provoked, that he told them, if they would move compaffion, it should be in their own perfons, and not in the characters of diftreffed princes and potentates: he told them, if they were fo good at finding the way to people's hearts, they fhould do it at the end of bridges or church-porches, in their * proper vocation of beggars. This, the Juftice fays, they mult expect, fince they could not be contented to act Heathen warriors, and fuch fellows as Alexander, but must prefume to make a mockery of one of the quorum. < R Your fervant. No. 49. Thursday, April 26. MART. Hominem pagina noftra fapit. Men and their manners I defcribe. IT T is very natural for a man who is not turned for mirthful meetings of men, or affemblies of the fair fex, to delight in that fort of converfation which we find in coffeehouses. Here a man of my temper is in his clement: for if he cannot talk, he can ftill be more agréeable to his company, as well as pleased in himself, in being only an hearer. It is a fecret known but to few, yet of no fmall use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's converfation, the first thing you fhould confider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you fhould hear him. The latter is the more general defire,, and I know very able flatterers that never speak a word in praife of the perfons from whom they obtain daily favours,. but ftill practise a skilful attention to whatever is uttered by those with whom they converfe. We are very curious to obferve the behaviour of great men and their clients : but the fame paffions and interefts move men in lower fpheres: and I (that have nothing elfe to do, but make obfervations) fee in every parish, street, lane, and alley of this populous city, a little potentate that has his court and his flatterers who lay fnares for his affection and favour, by the fame arts that are practifed upon men in higher stations. IN the place I most ufually frequent, men differ rather in the time of day in which they make a figure, than in any real greatnefs above one another. I, who am at the coffeehouse at fix in the morning, know that my friend Beaver the haberdasher has a levee of more undiffembled. friends and admirers, than most of the courtiers or generals of Great Britain. Every man about him has, perhaps, a news paper in his hand; but none can pretend to guefs what ftep will be taken in any one court of Europe, till Mr. Beaver has thrown down his pipe, and declares what meafures the allies muft enter into upon this new poAure of affairs. Our coffeehouse is near one of the inns of in of court, and Beaver has the audience and admiration of his neighbours, from fix till within a quarter of eight, at which time he is interrupted by the students of the houfe; some of whom are ready dressed for Westminster, at eight in the morning, with faces as bufy as if they were retained every caufe there; and others come in their night-gowns to faunter away their time, as if they never defigned to go thither. I do not know that I meet, in any of my walks, objects which move both my fpleen and laughter fo effectually, as thefe young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffeehouses adjacent to the law, who rife early for no other purpose but to publish their lazinefs. One would think thefe young virtuofos take a gay cap and flippers, with a fcarf and party-coloured gown to be enfigns of dignity; for the vain things approach each other with an air, which fhews they regard one another for their vestments. I have obferved, that the fuperiority among thefe proceeds from an opinion of gallantry and fashion: the gentlemen in the ftrawberry fafh, who prefides fo much over the reft, has, it feems, fubfcribed to every opera this last winter, and is fuppofed to receive favours from one of the actreffes. WHEN the day grows too bufy for thefe gentlemen to enjoy any longer the pleasures of their deshabile, with any manner of confidence, they give place to men who have bufinefs or good fenfe in their faces, and come to the coffeehouse either to tranfact affairs or enjoy conversation. The perfons to whose behaviour and discourse I have most regard, are fuch as are between these two sorts of men; fuch as have not fpirits too active to be happy and well pleased in a private condition, nor complexions too warm to make them neglect the duties and relations of life. Of these fort of men confift the worthier part of mankind; of thefe are all good fathers, generous brothers, fincere friends, and faithful fubjects. Their entertainments are derived rather from reafon than imagination; which is the cause that there is no impatience or inftability in their speech or action. You fee in their countenances they are at home, and in quiet poffeffion of the prefent inftant, as it paffes, without defiring to quicken it by gratifying any paffion, or profecuting any new defign. These are the men formed for fociety, |