< YOU must know I keep my Temper, and win their Money; but am out of Countenance to take it, it makes them fo very uneafie. Be pleafed, dear Sir, to inftruc them to lofe with a better Grace, and you will oblige Your's, Rachel Bafto. Mr. SPECTATOR, OUR Kindness to Eleonora, in one of your Papers, has given me Encouragement to do my felf the Honour of writing to you. The great Regard you have, fo often expreffed for the Inftruction and Improvement of our Sex, will, I hope, in your own Opinion, fuffi. ciently excufe me from making any Apology for the Impertinence of this Letter. The great Defire I have to embellifh my Mind with fome of thofe Graces which you fay are fo becoming, and which you affert Reading. helps us to, has made me uneafie 'till I am put in a Capacity of attaining them: This, Sir, I fhall never think my felf in, till you fhall be pleafed to recommend fome Author or Authors to my Perufal. I thought indeed, when I first caft my Eye on Eleono ra's Letter, that I fhould have had no occafion for requefting it of you; but to my very great Concern, I found, on the Perufal of that Spectator, I was entirely, difappointed, and am as much at a lofs how to make ufe • of my Time for that end as ever. Pray, Sir, oblige me at least with one Scene, as you were pleafed to enter⚫tain Eleonora 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 pleafed with the ordinary manner of fpending one's Time as my felf: And if a fervent Defire after Knowledge, and a great Senfe of our prefent Ignorance, may be thought a good Prefage and Earneft of Improvement, you may look upon your Time you fhall beftow in answering this Request not thrown away to no purpofe. And I can't but add, that unless you have a particular and more than ordinary Regard for Eleonora, I have a better Title to your Favour than fhe; fince I do not content my felf with a Tea-Table Reading of your Papers, but it is my Entertainment very often when alone in my Clofet. To fhew you I am capable of Improvement, and hate Flattery, • Flattery, I acknowledge I do not like fome of your Pa" pers; but even there I am readier to call in queftion my own fhallow Understanding than Mr. SPECTATOR'S profound. Judgment. I am, Sir, your already (and in hopes of being more your) obliged Servant, PARTHENIA, This laft Letter is written with fo urgent and serious an Air, that I cannot but think it incumbent upon me to comply with her Commands, which I fhall do very fuddenly. N° 141 Saturday, August 11. Omnis •Migravit ab Aure voluptas Hor N the prefent Emptinefs of the Town, I have feveral Applications from the lower Part of the Players,to admit Suffering to pafs for Acting. They in very oblig ing Terms defire me to let a Fall on the Ground, a Stumble, or a good Slap on the Back, be reckoned a Jeft. These Gambols I fhall tolerate for a Seafon, because I hope the Evil cannot continue longer than till the People of Condition and Tafte return to Town, The Method, fome time ago, was to entertain that Part of the Audience who have no Faculty above Eye-fight, with Rope-Dancers and Tumblers; which was a way difcreet enough, becaufe it prevented Confufion, and diftinguished fuch as could fhow all the Postures which the Body is capable of, from those who were to reprefent all the Paffions to which the Mind is fubject. But tho' this was prudently fettled, Corporeal and Intellectual Actors ought to be kept at a still wider Diftance than to appear on the fame Stage at all: For which Reafon I muft propofe fome Methods for the Improve ment of the Bear-Garden, by difmiffing all Bodily Actors to that Quarter. IN Cafes of greater moment, where Men appear in Publick, the Confequence and Importance of the thing Ka сам can bear them out. And tho' a Pleader or Preacher is Hoarfe or Aukward, 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 Cafes where there is little elfe expected, but the Pleasure of the Ears and Eyes, the leaft Diminution of that Pleafure is the highest Offence. In acting, barely to perform the Part is not commendable, but to be the leaft out is contemptible. To avoid thefe Difficulties and Delicacies, I am informed, that while I was out of Town the Actors have flown in the Air, and played fuch Pranks, and run fuch 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 feems, has been of the Audience at one of thefe Entertainments, and has accordingly complained to me upon it; but I think he has been to the utmost degree fevere a gainst what is exceptionable in the Play he mentions, without dwelling fo much as he might have done on the Author's moft excellent Talent of Humour. The pleasant Pictures he has drawn of Life, fhould have been more kindly mentioned, at the fame time that he banishes his Witches, who are too dull Devils to be attacked with fo much Warmth. Mr SPECTATOR, UR PON a Report that Moll White had followed you to Town, and was to act a Part in the LancashireWitches, I went laft Week to fee that Play. It was my Fortune to fit next to a Country Juftice of the Peace, a Neighbour (as he faid) of Sir ROGER's, who pretend⚫ed to fhew her to us in one of the Dances. There was Witchcraft enough in the Entertainment almost to incline me to believe him; Ben. Johnson was almost lamed; young Bullock narrowly faved his Neck; the Audience was aftonifhed, and an old Acquaintance of mine, a Perfon of Worth, whom I would have bowed to in the Pit, at two Yards diftance did not know me. IF you were what the Country People reported you, a white Witch, I could have wifhed you had been there to have exercised thatRabble of Broomsticks, with which we were haunted for above three Hours. I could have allowed allowed them to fet Clod in the Tree, to have scared the Sportfmen, plagued the Juftice, and employed honest Teague with his holy Water. This was the proper Ufe of them in Comedy, if the Author had ftopped here; but 'I cannot conceive what Relation the Sacrifice of the Black Lamb, and the Ceremonies of their Worship to the Devil, have to the Business of Mirth and Humour. THE Gentleman who writ this Play, and has drawn ⚫ fome Characters in it very juftly, appears to have been mif-led in his Witchcraft by an unwary following the inimitable Shakespear. The Incantations in Mackbeth have a Solemnity admirably adapted to the Occafion of that Tragedy, and fill the Mind with a fuitable Horror; befides, that the Witches are a part of the Story it felf, as we find it very particularly related in Hector Boetius,from whom he seems to have taken it. This therefore is a proper Machine where the Business is dark, horrid and bloody, but is extremely foreign from the Affair of Comedy. Subjects of this kind, which are in themselves difagreeable, can at no time become entertaining, but by paffing thro' an Imagination like Shakespear's to form them; for which Reafon Mr. Dryden would not allow even Beaumont and Fletcher capable of imitating him. But Shakefpear's Magick cou'd not copy'd be, • I should not, however, have troubled you with thefe Remarks, if there were not fomething else in this Comedy, which wants to be exercised more than the Witches: I mean the Freedom of fome Paffages, which I ⚫ should have overlooked, if I had not observed that those Jefts can raife the loudeft Mirth, though they are painful to right Senfe, and an Outrage upon Modefty. WE must attribute fuch Liberties to the Taste of that Age, but indeed by fuch Representations a Poet facri"fices the beft Part of his Audience to the worft; and, as one would think, neglects the Boxes, to write to the Orange-Wenches. ་ I must not conclude till I have taken notice of the • Moral with which this Comedy ends. The two young Ladies having given a notable Example of outwitting those who had a Right in the Disposal of them, and mar• rying K 3 rying without Consent of Parents, one of the injur'd Parties, who is eafily reconcil'd, winds up all with this • Remark, ·Defign whate'er we will, There is a Fate which over-rules us ftill. We are to fuppofe that the Gallants are Men of Merit, but if they had been Rakes the Excufe might have serv'd as well. Han's Carvel's Wife was of the fame Principle, • but has exprefs'd it with a Delicacy which fhews fhe is not serious in her Excufe, but in a fort of Humorous Philofophy turns off the Thought of her Guilt, and fays, 6. That if weak Women go aftray, Their Stars are more in fault than they. THIS, no doubt, is a full Reparation, and difmiffes the Audience with very edifying Impreffions. THESE things fall under a Province you have partly purfu'd already, and therefore demand your Animad. verfion, for the regulating fo Noble an Entertainment as that of the Stage. It were to be wished, that all who write for it hereafter would raise their Genius, by the •Ambition of pleafing People of the beft Understanding; and leave others who fhew nothing of the Human • Species but Rifibility, to feek their Diverfion at the BearGarden, or fome other Privileg'd Place, where Reason and good Manners have no Right to disturb them. Auguft, 8, 171L.. T I am, &c. N° 142. Monday, August 13. T -Irrupta tenet Copula Hor. HE following Letters being Genuine, and the Ima ges of a Worthy Paffion, I am willing to give the old Lady's Admonition to my felf, and the Reprefentation of her own Happinefs, a Place in my Writings. Mr. |