6: MR. SPECTATOR,

"LAST night as I was walking in the Park, I met a couple of friends. Pr'ythee, Jack,' says one of them, let us go drink a glass of wine, for I am fit for nothing else.' This put me upon reflecting on the many miscarriages which happen in conversations over wine, when men go to the bottle to remove such humours as it only stirs up and awakens. This I could not attribute more to any thing than to the humour of putting company upon others which men do not like themselves. Pray, Sir, declare in your papers, that he who is a troublesome companion to himself will not be an agreeable one to others. Let people reason themselves into good humour, before they impose themselves upon their friends. Pray, Sir, be as eloquent as you can upon this subject, and do human life so much good as to argue powerfully, that it is not every one that can swallow who is fit to drink a glass of wine.

"Your most humble servant."

"SIR,

"I THIS morning cast my eye upon your paper concerning the expense of time. You are very obliging to the women, especially those who are not young and past gallantry, by touching so gently upon gaming: therefore I hope you do not think it wrong to employ a little leisure time in that diver sion; but I should be glad to hear you say something upon the behaviour of some of the female gamesters.

"I have observed ladies, who in all other respects are gentle, good-humoured, and the very pinks of good-breeding, who, as soon as the ombre-table is

called for, and set down to their business, are immediately transmigrated into the veriest wasps in

nature.

"You must know I keep my temper, and win their money; but am out of countenance to take it, it makes them so very uneasy. Be pleased, dear Sir, to instruct them to lose with a better grace, and you will oblige

"Yours,

66 MR. SPECTATOR,

"RACHEL BASTO."

"YOUR kindness to Leonora, in one of your papers, has given me encouragement to do myself the honour of writing to you. The great regard you have so often expressed for the instruction and improvement of our sex will, I hope, in your own opinion, sufficiently excuse me from making any apology for the impertinence of this letter. The great desire I have to embellish my mind with some of those graces which you say are so becoming, and which you assert reading helps us to, has made me uneasy till I am put in a capacity of attaining them. This, Sir, I shall never think myself in, till you shall be pleased to recommend some author or authors to my perusal.

"I thought, indeed, when I first cast my eye on Leonora's letter, that I should have had no occasion for requesting it of you; but, to my very great concern, I found, on the perusal of that Spectator, I was entirely disappointed, and am as much at a loss how to make use of my time for that end as ever. Pray, Sir, oblige me at least with one scene, as you were pleased to entertain Leonora with your prologue. I write to you not only my own sentiments, but also those of several others of my acquaintance, who are as little pleased with the ordinary manner of spend

ing one's time as myself. And if a fervent desire after knowledge, and a great sense of our present ignorance, may be thought a good presage and earnest of improvement, you may look upon your time you shall bestow in answering this request not thrown away to no purpose. And I cannot but add, that unless you have a particular and more than ordinary regard for Leonora, I have a better title to your favour than she; since I do not content myself with a tea-table reading of your papers, but it is my entertainment very often when alone in my closet. To show you I am capable of improvement, and hate flattery, I acknowledge I do not like some of your papers; but even there I am readier to call in question my own shallow understanding than Mr. Spectator's profound judgement.

"I am, SIR, your already, and in hopes of being more your, obliged servant,

“PARTHENIA.”

This last letter is written with so urgent and serious an air, that I cannot but think it incumbent upon me to comply with her commands, which I shall do very suddenly.

T

No. 141. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1711.

Omnis.

- Migravit ab aure voluptas

HOR. EPIST. ii. 1. 187.

Taste, that eternal wanderer, that flies
From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.

РОРЕ.

In the present emptiness of the town, I have several applications from the lower part of the players, to admit suffering to pass for acting. They in very obliging terms desire me to let a fall on the ground, a stumble, or a good slap on the back, be reckoned a jest. These gambols I shall tolerate for a season, because I hope the evil cannot continue longer than till the people of condition and taste return to town. The method, some time ago, was to entertain that part of the audience, who have no faculty above eyesight, with rope-dancers and tumblers; which was a way discreet enough, because it prevented confusion, and distinguished such as could show all the postures which the body is capable of, from those who were to represent all the passions to which the mind is subject. But though this was prudently settled, corporeal and intellectual actors ought to be kept at a still wider distance than to appear on the same stage at all; for which reason, I must propose some methods for the improvement of the bear-garden, by dismissing all bodily actors to that quarter.

In cases of greater moment, where men appear in public, the consequence and importance of the thing can bear them out. And though a pleader or

preacher is hoarse or awkward, the weight of their matter commands respect and attention; but in theatrical speaking, if the performer is not exactly proper and graceful, he is utterly ridiculous. In cases where there is little else expected, but the pleasure of the ears and eyes, the least diminution of that pleasure is the highest offence. In acting, barely to perform the part is not commendable, but to be the least out is contemptible. To avoid these difficulties and delicacies, I am informed, that while I was out of town, the actors have flown in the air, and played such pranks, and run such hazards, that none but the servants of the fire-office, tilers, and masons, could have been able to perform the like. The author of the following letter, it seems, has been of the audience at one of these entertainments, and has accordingly complained to me upon it; but I think he has been to the utmost degree severe against what is exceptionable in the play he mentions, without dwelling so much as he might have done on the author's most excellent talent of humour. The pleasant pictures he has drawn of life should have been more kindly mentioned, at the same time that he banishes his witches, who are too dull devils to be attacked with so much warmth.

ed

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"UPON a report that Moll White had followyou to town, and was to act a part in the Lancashire Witches, I went last week to see that play. It was my fortune to sit next to a country justice of the peace, a neighbour, as he said, of Sir

* Alluding to Shadwell's comedy of the Lancashire Witches, which had been lately acted several times, and was advertised for the very night in which this Spectator is dated.