In
.
Contents
|
Friday, March 23, 1711 |
Steele |
Greek: Kynos ommat' ech_on
Hom.
Among the other hardy Undertakings which I have proposed to my self,
that of the Correction of Impudence is what I have very much at Heart.
This in a particular Manner is my Province as
Spectator
; for it is
generally an Offence committed by the Eyes, and that against such as the
Offenders would perhaps never have an Opportunity of injuring any other
Way. The following Letter is a Complaint of a Young Lady, who sets forth
a Trespass of this Kind with that Command of herself as befits Beauty
and Innocence, and yet with so much Spirit as sufficiently expresses her
Indignation. The whole Transaction is performed with the Eyes; and the
Crime is no less than employing them in such a Manner, as to divert the
Eyes of others from the best use they can make of them, even looking up
to Heaven.
'Sir,
There never was (I believe) an acceptable Man, but had some awkward
Imitators. Ever since the Spectator appear'd, have I remarked a kind
of Men, whom I choose to call Starers, that without any Regard
to Time, Place, or Modesty, disturb a large Company with their
impertinent Eyes. Spectators make up a proper Assembly for a
Puppet-Show or a Bear-Garden; but devout Supplicants and attentive
Hearers, are the Audience one ought to expect in Churches. I am, Sir,
Member of a small pious congregation near one of the North Gates of
this City; much the greater Part of us indeed are Females, and used to
behave our selves in a regular attentive Manner, till very lately one
whole Isle has been disturbed with one of these monstrous
Starers: He's the Head taller than any one in the Church; but
for the greater Advantage of exposing himself, stands upon a Hassock,
and commands the whole Congregation, to the great Annoyance of the
devoutest part of the Auditory; for what with Blushing, Confusion, and
Vexation, we can neither mind the Prayers nor Sermon. Your
Animadversion upon this Insolence would be a great favour to,
Sir,
Your most humble servant,
S. C.
I have frequently seen of this Sort of Fellows; and do not think there
can be a greater Aggravation of an Offence, than that it is committed
where the Criminal is protected by the Sacredness of the Place which he
violates. Many Reflections of this Sort might be very justly made upon
this Kind of Behaviour, but a
Starer
is not usually a Person to
be convinced by the Reason of the thing; and a Fellow that is capable of
showing an impudent Front before a whole Congregation, and can bear
being a publick Spectacle, is not so easily rebuked as to amend by
Admonitions. If therefore my Correspondent does not inform me, that
within Seven Days after this Date the Barbarian does not at least stand
upon his own Legs only, without an Eminence, my friend
Will. Prosper
has
promised to take an Hassock opposite to him, and stare against him in
Defence of the Ladies. I have given him Directions, according to the
most exact Rules of Opticks, to place himself in such a Manner that he
shall meet his Eyes wherever he throws them: I have Hopes that when
Will
. confronts him, and all the Ladies, in whose Behalf he engages him,
cast kind Looks and Wishes of Success at their Champion, he will have
some Shame, and feel a little of the Pain he has so often put others to,
of being out of Countenance.
It has indeed been Time out of Mind generally remarked, and as often
lamented, that this Family of
Starers
have infested publick
Assemblies: And I know no other Way to obviate so great an Evil, except,
in the Case of fixing their Eyes upon Women, some Male Friend will take
the Part of such as are under the Oppression of Impudence, and encounter
the Eyes of the
Starers
wherever they meet them. While we suffer
our Women to be thus impudently attacked, they have no Defence, but in
the End to cast yielding Glances at the
Starers
: And in this
Case, a Man who has no Sense of Shame has the same Advantage over his
Mistress, as he who has no Regard for his own Life has over his
Adversary. While the Generality of the World are fetter'd by Rules, and
move by proper and just Methods, he who has no Respect to any of them,
carries away the Reward due to that Propriety of Behaviour, with no
other Merit but that of having neglected it.
I take an impudent Fellow to be a sort of Out-law in Good-Breeding, and
therefore what is said of him no Nation or Person can be concerned for:
For this Reason one may be free upon him. I have put my self to great
Pains in considering this prevailing Quality which we call Impudence,
and have taken Notice that it exerts it self in a different Manner,
according to the different Soils wherein such Subjects of these
Dominions as are Masters of it were born. Impudence in an Englishman is
sullen and insolent, in a Scotchman it is untractable and rapacious, in
an Irishman absurd and fawning: As the Course of the World now runs, the
impudent Englishman behaves like a surly Landlord, the Scot, like an
ill-received Guest, and the Irishman, like a Stranger who knows he is
not welcome. There is seldom anything entertaining either in the
Impudence of a South or North Briton; but that of an Irishman is always
comick. A true and genuine Impudence is ever the Effect of Ignorance,
without the least Sense of it. The best and most successful
Starers
now in this Town are of that Nation: They have usually the Advantage of
the Stature mentioned in the above Letter of my Correspondent, and
generally take their Stands in the Eye of Women of Fortune; insomuch
that I have known one of them, three Months after he came from Plough,
with a tolerable good Air lead out a Woman from a Play, which one of our
own Breed, after four years at
Oxford
and two at the
Temple
, would
have been afraid to look at.
I cannot tell how to account for it, but these People have usually the
Preference to our own Fools, in the Opinion of the sillier Part of
Womankind. Perhaps it is that an English Coxcomb is seldom so obsequious
as an Irish one; and when the Design of pleasing is visible, an
Absurdity in the Way toward it is easily forgiven.
But those who are downright impudent, and go on without Reflection that
they are such, are more to be tolerated, than a Set of Fellows among us
who profess Impudence with an Air of Humour, and think to carry off the
most inexcusable of all Faults in the World, with no other Apology than
saying in a gay Tone,
I put an impudent Face upon the Matter
. No, no
Man shall be allowed the Advantages of Impudence, who is conscious that
he is such: If he knows he is impudent, he may as well be otherwise; and
it shall be expected that he blush, when he sees he makes another do it:
For nothing can attone for the want of Modesty, without which Beauty is
ungraceful, and Wit detestable.
R.
Contents
|
Saturday, March 24, 17111 |
Addison |
Locus est et phiribus Umbris.
Hor.
I am sometimes very much troubled, when I reflect upon the three great
Professions of Divinity, Law, and Physick; how they are each of them
over-burdened with Practitioners, and filled with Multitudes of
Ingenious Gentlemen that starve one another.
We may divide the Clergy into Generals, Field-Officers, and Subalterns.
Among the first we may reckon Bishops, Deans, and Arch-Deacons. Among
the second are Doctors of Divinity, Prebendaries, and all that wear
Scarfs. The rest are comprehended under the Subalterns. As for the first
Class, our Constitution preserves it from any Redundancy of Incumbents,
notwithstanding Competitors are numberless. Upon a strict Calculation,
it is found that there has been a great Exceeding of late Years in the
Second Division, several Brevets having been granted for the converting
of Subalterns into Scarf-Officers; insomuch that within my Memory the
price of Lute-string is raised above two Pence in a Yard. As for the
Subalterns, they are not to be numbred. Should our Clergy once enter
into the corrupt Practice of the Laity, by the splitting of their
Free-holds, they would be able to carry most of the Elections in
England
.
Body of the Law is no less encumbered with superfluous Members, that
are like
Virgil's
Army, which he tells us was so crouded
,
many of them had not Room to use their Weapons. This prodigious Society
of Men may be divided into the Litigious and Peaceable. Under the first
are comprehended all those who are carried down in Coach-fulls to
Westminster-Hall
every Morning in Term-time.
Martial's
description
of this Species of Lawyers is full of Humour:
Iras et verba locant.
Men that hire out their Words and Anger; that are more or less
passionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their Client a
quantity of Wrath proportionable to the Fee which they receive from him.
I must, however, observe to the Reader, that above three Parts of those
whom I reckon among the Litigious, are such as are only quarrelsome in
their Hearts, and have no Opportunity of showing their Passion at the
Bar. Nevertheless, as they do not know what Strifes may arise, they
appear at the Hall every Day, that they may show themselves in a
Readiness to enter the Lists, whenever there shall be Occasion for them.
The Peaceable Lawyers are, in the first place, many of the Benchers of
the several Inns of Court, who seem to be the Dignitaries of the Law,
and are endowed with those Qualifications of Mind that accomplish a Man
rather for a Ruler, than a Pleader.
Men live peaceably in their
Habitations, Eating once a Day, and Dancing once a Year
, for the
Honour of their Respective Societies.
Another numberless Branch of Peaceable Lawyers, are those young Men who
being placed at the Inns of Court in order to study the Laws of their
Country, frequent the Play-House more than
Westminster-Hall
, and are
seen in all publick Assemblies, except in a Court of Justice. I shall
say nothing of those Silent and Busie Multitudes that are employed
within Doors in the drawing up of Writings and Conveyances; nor of those
greater Numbers that palliate their want of Business with a Pretence to
such Chamber-Practice.
If, in the third place, we look into the Profession of Physick, we shall
find a most formidable Body of Men: The Sight of them is enough to make
a Man serious, for we may lay it down as a Maxim, that When a Nation
abounds in Physicians, it grows thin of People.
William Temple
is
very much puzzled to find a Reason why the Northern Hive, as he calls
it, does not send out such prodigious Swarms, and over-run the World
with
Goths
and
Vandals
, as it did formerly
; but had that
Excellent Author observed that there were no Students in Physick among
the Subjects of
Thor
and
Woden
, and that this Science very much
flourishes in the North at present, he might have found a better
Solution for this Difficulty, than any of those he has made use of. This
Body of Men, in our own Country, may be described like the
British
Army in
Cæsar's
time: Some of them slay in Chariots, and some on Foot.
If the Infantry do less Execution than the Charioteers, it is, because
they cannot be carried so soon into all Quarters of the Town, and
dispatch so much Business in so short a Time. Besides this Body of
Regular Troops, there are Stragglers, who, without being duly listed and
enrolled, do infinite Mischief to those who are so unlucky as to fall
into their Hands.
There are, besides the above-mentioned, innumerable Retainers to
Physick, who, for want of other Patients, amuse themselves with the
stifling of Cats in an Air Pump, cutting up Dogs alive, or impaling of
Insects upon the point of a Needle for Microscopical Observations;
besides those that are employed in the gathering of Weeds, and the Chase
of Butterflies: Not to mention the Cockle-shell-Merchants and
Spider-catchers.
When I consider how each of these Professions are crouded with
Multitudes that seek their Livelihood in them, and how many Men of Merit
there are in each of them, who may be rather said to be of the Science,
than the Profession; I very much wonder at the Humour of Parents, who
will not rather chuse to place their Sons in a way of Life where an
honest Industry cannot but thrive, than in Stations where the greatest
Probity, Learning and Good Sense may miscarry. How many
Men are Country-Curates, that might have made themselves Aldermen of
London
by a right Improvement of a smaller Sum of Mony than what is
usually laid out upon a learned Education? A sober, frugal Person, of
slender Parts and a slow Apprehension, might have thrived in Trade, tho'
he starves upon Physick; as a Man would be well enough pleased to buy
Silks of one, whom he would not venture to feel his Pulse.
Vagellius
is careful, studious and obliging, but withal a little thick-skull'd; he
has not a single Client, but might have had abundance of Customers. The
Misfortune is, that Parents take a Liking to a particular Profession,
and therefore desire their Sons may be of it. Whereas, in so great an
Affair of Life, they should consider the Genius and Abilities of their
Children, more than their own Inclinations.
It is the great Advantage of a trading Nation, that there are very few
in it so dull and heavy, who may not be placed in Stations of Life which
may give them an Opportunity of making their Fortunes. A well-regulated
Commerce is not, like Law, Physick or Divinity, to be overstocked with
Hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by Multitudes, and gives
Employment to all its Professors. Fleets of Merchantmen are so many
Squadrons of floating Shops, that vend our Wares and Manufactures in all
the Markets of the World, and find out Chapmen under both the Tropicks.
C.
At this time, and until the establishment of New Style,
from 1752, the legal year began in England on the 25th of March, while
legally in Scotland, and by common usage throughout the whole kingdom,
the customary year began on the 1st of January. The
Spectator
dated its years, according to custom, from the first of January; and so
wrote its first date March 1, 1711. But we have seen letters in it dated
in a way often adopted to avoid confusion (1710-11) which gave both the
legal and the customary reckoning. March 24 being the last day of the
legal year 1710, in the following papers, until December 31, the year is
1711 both by law and custom. Then again until March 24, while usage will
be recognizing a new year, 1712, it will be still for England (but not
for Scotland) 1711 to the lawyers. The reform initiated by Pope Gregory
XIII in 1582, and not accepted for England and Ireland until 1751, had
been adopted by Scotland from the 1st of January, 1600.
[This reform was necessary to make up for the inadequate shortness of the previous calendar (relative to the solar year), which had resulted in some months' discrepancy by the eighteenth century.]
that
In Dugdale's
Origines Juridiciales
we read how in the
Middle Temple, on All Saints' Day, when the judges and serjeants who had
belonged to the Inn were feasted,
'the music being begun, the Master of
the Revels was twice called. At the second call, the Reader with the
white staff advanced, and began to lead the measures, followed by the
barristers and students in order; and when one measure was ended, the
Reader at the cupboard called for another.'
See Sir W. Temple's
Essay on Heroic Virtue
, Section 4.
'This part of Scythia, in its whole Northern extent, I take to have been
the vast Hive out of which issued so many mighty swarms of barbarous
nations,' &c. And again, 'Each of these countries was like a mighty
hive, which, by the vigour of propagation and health of climate, growing
too full of people, threw out some new swarm at certain periods of time,
that took wing and sought out some new abode, expelling or subduing the
old inhabitants, and seating themselves in their rooms, if they liked
the conditions of place and commodities of life they met with; if not,
going on till they found some other more agreeable to their present
humours and dispositions.' He attributes their successes and their rapid
propagation to the greater vigour of life in the northern climates; and
the only reason he gives for the absence of like effects during the
continued presence of like causes is, that Christianity abated their
enthusiasm and allayed 'the restless humour of perpetual wars and
actions.'
Contents
|
Monday, March 26, 1711 |
Steele |
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.
Hor.
The word
Spectator
being most usually understood as one of the
Audience at Publick Representations in our Theatres, I seldom fail of
many Letters relating to Plays and Operas. But, indeed, there are such
monstrous things done in both, that if one had not been an Eye-witness
of them, one could not believe that such Matters had really been
exhibited. There is very little which concerns human Life, or is a
Picture of Nature, that is regarded by the greater Part of the Company.
The Understanding is dismissed from our Entertainments. Our Mirth is the
Laughter of Fools, and our Admiration the Wonder of Idiots; else such
improbable, monstrous, and incoherent Dreams could not go off as they
do, not only without the utmost Scorn and Contempt, but even with the
loudest Applause and Approbation.
the Letters of my Correspondents
will represent this Affair in a more lively Manner than any Discourse of
my own; I
shall therefore
give them to my Reader with only this
Preparation, that they all come from Players,
and that the business of
Playing is now so managed that you are not to be surprised when I say
one or two of
them
are rational, others sensitive and vegetative
Actors, and others wholly inanimate. I shall not place these as I have
named them, but as they have Precedence in the Opinion of their
Audiences.
"Mr.
Spectator,
Your having been so humble as to take Notice of the Epistles of other
Animals, emboldens me, who am the wild Boar that was killed by Mrs.
Tofts3, to represent to you, That I think I was hardly used
in not having the Part of the Lion in
Hydaspes given to me. It
would have been but a natural Step for me to have personated that
noble Creature, after having behaved my self to Satisfaction in the
Part above-mention'd: But that of a Lion, is too great a Character for
one that never trod the Stage before but upon two Legs. As for the
little Resistance which I made, I hope it may be excused, when it is
considered that the Dart was thrown at me by so fair an Hand. I must
confess I had but just put on my Brutality; and
Camilla's
charms were such, that b-holding her erect Mien, hearing her charming
Voice, and astonished with her graceful Motion, I could not keep up to
my assumed Fierceness, but died like a Man.
I am Sir,
Your most humble Servan.,
Thomas Prone."
Mr. Spectator,
This is to let you understand, that the Play-House is a Representation
of the World in nothing so much as in this Particular, That no one
rises in it according to his Merit.
I have acted several Parts of
Household-stuff with great Applause for many Years: I am one of the
Men in the Hangings in the
Emperour of the Moon4; I have
twice performed the third Chair in an English Opera; and have
rehearsed the Pump in the
Fortune-Hunters5. I am now grown
old, and hope you will recommend me so effectually, as that I may say
something before I go off the Stage: In which you will do a great Act
of Charity to
Your most humble servant,
William Serene."
"
Mr. Spectator,
Understanding that Mr.
Serene has writ to you, and desired to
be raised from dumb and still Parts; I desire, if you give him Motion
or Speech, that you would advance me in my Way, and let me keep on in
what I humbly presume I am a Master, to wit, in representing human and
still Life together. I have several times acted one of the finest
Flower-pots in the same Opera wherein Mr.
Serene is a Chair;
therefore, upon his promotion, request that I may succeed him in the
Hangings, with my Hand in the Orange-Trees.
Your humble servant,
Ralph Simple."
Drury Lane, March 24, 1710-11.
Sir,
I saw your Friend the Templar this Evening in the Pit, and thought he
looked very little pleased with the Representation of the mad Scene of
the
Pilgrim. I wish, Sir, you would do us the Favour to
animadvert frequently upon the false Taste the Town is in, with
Relation to Plays as well as Operas. It certainly requires a Degree of
Understanding to play justly; but such is our Condition, that we are
to suspend our Reason to perform our Parts. As to Scenes of Madness,
you know, Sir, there are noble Instances of this Kind in
Shakespear; but then it is the Disturbance of a noble Mind,
from generous and humane Resentments: It is like that Grief which we
have for the decease of our Friends: It is no Diminution, but a
Recommendation of humane Nature, that in such Incidents Passion gets
the better of Reason; and all we can think to comfort ourselves, is
impotent against half what we feel. I will not mention that we had an
Idiot in the Scene, and all the Sense it is represented to have, is
that of Lust. As for my self, who have long taken Pains in personating
the Passions, I have to Night acted only an Appetite: The part I
play'd is Thirst, but it is represented as written rather by a Drayman
than a Poet.
I come in with a Tub about me, that Tub hung with
Quart-pots; with a full Gallon at my Mouth
6. I
am ashamed to tell
you that I pleased very much, and this was introduced as a Madness;
but sure it was not humane Madness, for a Mule or an
ass7 may
have been as dry as ever I was in my Life.
I am, Sir, Your most obedient And humble servant."
"From the
Savoy in the
Strand.
Mr.
Spectator,
If you can read it with dry Eyes, I give you this trouble to acquaint
you, that I am the unfortunate King
Latinus, and believe I am the
first Prince that dated from this Palace since
John of
Gaunt. Such
is the Uncertainty of all human Greatness, that I who lately never
moved without a Guard, am now pressed as a common Soldier, and am to
sail with the first fair Wind against my Brother
Lewis of
France.
It is a very hard thing to put off a Character which one has appeared
in with Applause: This I experienced since the Loss of my Diadem; for,
upon quarrelling with another Recruit, I spoke my Indignation out of
my Part in
recitativo:
...
Most audacious Slave,
Dar'st thou an angry Monarch's Fury brave?
8
The Words were no sooner out of my Mouth, when a Serjeant knock'd me
down, and ask'd me if I had a Mind to Mutiny, in talking things no
Body understood. You see, Sir, my unhappy Circumstances; and if by
your Mediation you can procure a Subsidy for a Prince (who never
failed to make all that beheld him merry at his Appearance) you will
merit the Thanks of
Your friend,
The King of
Latium."
therefore shall
whom
In the opera of Camilla:
| Camilla. |
That Dorinda's my Name. |
| Linco. |
Well, I know't, I'll take care. |
| Camilla. |
And my Life scarce of late — |
| Linco. |
You need not repeat. |
| Prenesto. |
Help me! oh help me! |
|
A wild Boar struck by Prenesto. |
| Huntsman. |
Let's try to assist him. |
| Linco. |
Ye Gods, what Alarm! |
| Huntsman. |
Quick run to his aid. |
|
Enter Prenesto: The Boar pursuing him. |
| Prenesto. |
O Heav'ns! who defends me? |
| Camilla. |
My Arm. |
|
She throws a Dart, and kills the Boar. |
| Linco. |
Dorinda of nothing afraid,
She's sprightly and gay, a valiant Maid,
And as bright as the Day. |
| Camilla. |
Take Courage, Hunter, the Savage is dead. |
Katherine Tofts, the daughter of a person in the family of Bishop
Burnet, had great natural charms of voice, person, and manner. Playing
with Nicolini, singing English to his Italian, she was the first of our
prime donne in
Italian Opera. Mrs. Tofts had made much money when
in 1709 she quitted the stage with disordered intellect; her voice being
then unbroken, and her beauty in the height of its bloom. Having
recovered health, she married Mr. Joseph Smith, a rich patron of arts
and collector of books and engravings, with whom she went to Venice,
when he was sent thither as English Consul. Her madness afterwards
returned, she lived, therefore, says Sir J. Hawkins,
'sequestered from the world in a remote part of the house, and had a
large garden to range in, in which she would frequently walk, singing
and giving way to that innocent frenzy which had seized her in the
earlier part of her life.'
She identified herself with the great princesses whose loves and sorrows
she had represented in her youth, and died about the year 1760.
The
Emperor of the Moon
is a farce, from the French,
by Mrs. Aphra Behn, first acted in London in 1687. It was originally
Italian, and had run 80 nights in Paris as
Harlequin I'Empereur dans
le Monde de la Lune
. In Act II. sc. 3,
'The Front of the Scene is only a Curtain or Hangings to be drawn up
at Pleasure.'
Various gay masqueraders, interrupted by return of the Doctor, are
carried by Scaramouch behind the curtain. The Doctor enters in wrath,
vowing he has heard fiddles. Presently the curtain is drawn up and
discovers where Scaramouch has
'plac'd them all in the Hanging in which they make the Figures, where
they stand without Motion in Postures.'
Scaramouch professes that the noise was made by putting up this piece of
Tapestry,
'the best in Italy for the Rareness of the Figures, sir.'
While the Doctor is admiring the new tapestry, said to have been sent
him as a gift, Harlequin, who is
'placed on a Tree in the Hangings, hits him on the 'Head with his
Truncheon.'