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It may not be unacceptable to the reader to fee how Sophocles has conducted tragedy under the like delicate circumitances. Oreftes was in the fame condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having murdered his father, and taken poffeffion of his kingdom in The confpiracy with the adulterer. young prince therefore, being determined to revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys himfelf by a beautiful ftratagem into his mother's apartment, with a refolution to kill her. But becaufe fuch a fpectacle would have been too fhocking for the audience, this dreadful refolution is executed behind the fcenes: the mother is heard calling out to her fon for mercy; and the fon anfwering her, that the fhewed no mercy to his father; after which fhe fhrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows we find that he is flain. I do not remember that in any of our plays there are speeches made behind the fcenes, though there are other instances of this nature to be met with in thofe of the ancients: and I believe my reader will agree with me, that there is fomething infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the mother and her fon behind the fcenes, than could have been in any thing transacted before the audience. Oreftes immediately after meets the ufurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that he fhould live fome time in his prefent bitterness of foul before he would difpatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part of the palace where he had flain his father, whofe murder he would revenge in the very fame place where it was committed. By this means the poet obferves that decency which Horace afterwards established by a rule, of forbearing to commit pauricides or unnatural murders before the audience.

The French have therefore refined too

much upon Horace's rule, who never defigned to banish all kinds of death from the ftage; but only fuch as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better effect upon the audience when tranfacted behind the scenes. I would therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient poets, who were very fparing of their public executions, and rather chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as great an effect upon the audience. At the fame time I must ob

ferve, that though the devoted perfons of the tragedy were feldom flain before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always in it fomething melancholy or terrifying; fo that the killing on the ftage does not feem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but alfo as an improbability.

Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet;
Aut bumana palàm coquat exta nefarius Atreus;
Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in ex-
guem:

Quodcunque oftendis mibi fic, incredulus odi.

HOR. ARS POET. VER. 185. Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife, Nor Atreus there his horrid feaft prepare: Cadmus and Progne's metamorphofis, (She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake) And whatsoever contradicts my fenfe, I hate to fee, and never can believe.

ROSCOMMON.

I have now gone through the feveral dramatic inventions which are made use of by the ignorant poets to fupply the place of tragedy, and by the skilful to improve it, fome of which I could with intirely rejected, and the reft to be used with caution. It would be an endless talk to confider comedy in the fame light, and to mention the innumerable shifts that finall wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a fhort coat, and Norris in a long one, feldom fail of this effect. In ordinary comedies, a broad and a narrow-brimmed hat are different characters Sometimes the wit of the fcene lies in a thoulder belt, and fome

times

times in a pair of whiskers. A lover runing about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a fe, very good jeft in King Charles the Second's time; and invented by one of the firft wits of that age. But because ridicule is not fo delicate as compaffion,

THE

and because the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by confequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them.

NATIO COMEDA EST.

Juv. SAT. III. 100.

HERE is nothing which I more defire than a fafe and honourable peace, though at the fame time I am very apprehenfive of many ill confequences that may attend it. I do not mean in regard to our politics, but our manners. What an inundation of ribbons and brocades will break in upon us! What peals of laughter and impertinence fhall we be expofed to! For the prevention of thefe great evils, I could heartily with |_ that there was an act of parliament for prohibiting the importation of French fopperies.

The female inhabitants of our inland have already received very strong impreffions from this ludicrous nation, though by the length of the war, as there is no evil which has not fome good attending it, they are pretty well worn out and forgotten. I remember the time when fome of our well-bred countrywomen kept their valet-de-chambre, becaufe forfooth, a man was much more handy about them than one of their own fex. I myself have feen one of these male Abigails tripping about the room with a looking-glafs in his hand, and combing his lady's hair a whole morning together. Whether or no there was any truth in the ftory of a lady's being got with child by one of these her handmaids I cannot tell, but I think at prefent the whole race of them is extinct in our own country.

About the time that several of our sex were taken into this kind of fervice, the ladies likewife brought up the fashion of receiving vifits in their beds. It was then looked upon as a piece of ill-breeding for a woman to refufe to fee a man, because the was not ftirring; and a porter would have been thought unfit for his place, that could have made so aukward

с

an excufe. As I love to fee every thing that is new, I once prevailed upon my friend Will Honeycomb to carry me along with him to one of these travelled ladies, defiring him, at the same time, to prefent me as a foreigner who could not fpeak English, that fo I might not be obliged to bear a part in the discourse, The lady, though willing to appear undreft, had put on her beft looks, and painted herfelf for our reception. Her hair appeared in a very nice disorder, as the night-gown which was thrown upon her fhoulders was ruffled with great care. For my part, I am fo thocked with every thing that looks immodeft in the fair-fex, that I could not forbear taking off my eye from her when the moved in her bed, and was in the greatest confufion imaginable every time the ftirred a leg or an arm. As the coquettes, who introduced this cuftom, grew old, they left it off by degrees; well know ing that a woman of threescore may kick and tumble her heart out without making any impreffions.

Sempronia is at present the most profeft admirer of the French nation, but is fo modeft as to admit her vifitants no farther than her toilet. It is a very odd fight that beautiful creature makes, when fhe is talking politics with her treffes flowing about her fhoulders, and examining that face in the glafs which does fuch execution upon all the male ftandersby. How prettily does the divide her difcourfe between her woman and her vifitants! What fprightly transitions does the make from an opera or a fermon, to an ivory comb or a pin-cushion? How have I been pleafed to fee her interrupted in an account of her travels, by a meffage to her footman; and holding her tongue in the midst of a mo

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ral reflection, by applying the tip of it to a patch?

There is nothing which expofes a woman to greater dangers, than that gaiety and airinefs of temper, which are natural to most of the fex. It should be therefore the concern of every wife and virtuous woman, to keep this fprightlinefs from degenerating into levity. On the contrary, the whole difcourfe and behaviour of the French is to make the fex more fantastical, or, as they are pleafed to term it, more awak

ened,' than is confiftent either with virtue or difcretion. To speak loud in public affemblies, to let every one hear you talk of things that fhould only be mentioned in private, or in whisper, are looked upon as parts of a refined education. At the fame time a blufh is unfashionable, and filence more ill-bred than any thing that can be spoken. In fhort, discretion and modesty, which in all other ages and countries have been regarded as the greatest ornaments of the fair-fex, are confidered as the ingredients of narrow converfation and family behaviour.

Some years ago I was at the tragedy of Macbeth, and unfortunately placed myfelf under a woman of quality that is fince dead; who, as I found by the noife she made, was newly returned from France. A little before the rifing of the curtain, fhe broke out into a loud foliloquy When will the dear witches enter?' and immediately upon their first appearance, afked a lady that fat three boxes from her, on her righthand, if those witches were not charming creatures. A little after, as Betterton was in one of the fineft fpeeches of the play, the fhook her fan at another Jady, who fat as far on her left-hand, and told her with a whifper that might be heard all over the pit, we must not expect to fee Balloon to-night. Not long after, calling out to a young baronet by his name, who fat three feats before me, the asked him whether Mac

beth's wife was still alive; and before he could give an answer, fell a talking of the ghost of Banquo. She had by this time formed a little audience to herself, and fixed the attention of all about her. But as I had a mind to hear the play, I got out of the fphere of her impertinence, and planted myself in one of the remoteft corners of the pit.

This pretty childifhnefs of behaviour is one of the moft refined parts of coquetry, and is not to be attained in perfection by ladies that do not travel for their improvement. A natural and unconstrained behaviour has fomething in it fo agreeable, that it is no wonder to fee people endeavouring after it. But at the fame time, it is to very hard to hit, when it is not born with us, that people often make themselves ridiculous in attempting it.

A very ingenious French author tells us, that the ladies of the court of France, in his time, thought it ill-breeding, and a kind of female pedantry, to pronounce an hard word right; for which reason they took frequent occafion to use hard words, that they might fhew a politeness in murdering them. He further adds, that a lady of fome quality at court, having accidentally made ufe of an hard word in a proper place, and pronounced it right, the whole affembly was out of countenance for her.

I must however be fo juft as to own, that there are many ladies who have travelled feveral thousands of miles without being the worfe for it, and have brought home with them all the modefty, difcretion, and good fenfe, that they went abroad with. As on the contrary, there are great numbers of travelled ladies, who have lived all their days within the fmoke of London. I have known a woman that never was out of the parish of St. James's betray as many foreign fopperies in her carriage, as fhe could have gleaned up in half the countries of Europe.

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N° XLVI.

ufually meant by those words; and that he thought the coffee-man could not do better than to carry the paper to one of the fecretaries of itate. He further added, that he did not like the name of the outlandish man with the golden clock in his stockings. A young Oxford scholar, who chanced to be with his uncle at the coffee-house, difcovered to us who this Pactolus was; and by that means turned the whole fcheme of this worthy citizen into ridicule. While they were making their feveral conjectures upon this innocent paper, I reached out my arm to the boy, as he was com ing out of the pulpit, to give it me; which he did accordingly. This drew the eyes of the whole company upon me; but after having caft a curfory glance over it, and fhook my head twice or thrice at the reading of it, I twifted it into a kind of match, and lit my pipe with it. My profound filence, together with the steadiness of my countenance, and the gravity of my behaviour during this whole tranfaction, raifed a very loud laugh on all fides of me; but as I had escaped all fufpicion of being the author, I was very well fatisfied; and applying myself to my pipe and the Postman, took no farther notice of any thing that paffed about me.

My reader will find, that I have already made ufe of above half the contents of the foregoing paper; and will eafily fuppofe, that thofe fubjects which are yet untouched, were fuch provifions as I had made for his future entertainment. But as I have been unluckily prevented by this accident, I fhall only give him the letters which relate to the two laft hints. The firft of them I fhould not have published, were I not informed that there is many an hufband who fuffers very much in his private affairs by the indifcreet zeal of fuch a partner as is hereafter mentioned; to whom I may apply the barbarous infcription quoted by the Bishop of Salisbury in his travels; Dum nimis pia eft, facta eft impia-Through too • much piety the became impious.'

SIR,

I Am one of thofe unhappy men that are plagued with a Gospel-goffip, fo common among Diffenters, efpecially friends. Lectures in the morning, church-meetings at noon, and preparation-fermons at night, take up so much of her time, it is very rare he knows what we have for dinner, unless when the preacher is to be at it. With him come a tribe, all brothers and fifters, it feems; while others, really such, are deemed no relations. If at any time I have her company alone, the is a mere fermon popgun, repeating and discharging texts, proofs, and applications, fo perpetually, that however weary I may go to-bed, the noife in my head will not let me fleep till towards morning. The mifery of my cafe, and great numbers of fuch fufferers, plead your pity and speedy relief, otherwise must expect, in a little time, to be lectured, preached, and prayed into want, unless the happiness of being fooner talked to death prevent it. I am, &c. R. G.

The fecond letter relating to the Ogling-Mafter, runs thus:

MR. SPECTATOR,

I Am an Irish gentleman, that have

travelled many years for my improvement; during which time I have accomplished myself in the whole art of ogling, as it is at prefent practised in all the polite nations of Europe. Being thus qualified, I intend, by the advice of my friends, to fet up for an oglingmafter. I teach the church-ogle in the morning, and the playhouse-ogle by candle-light. I have alfo brought over with me a new flying ogle fit for the Ring; which I teach in the dusk of the evening, or in any hour of the day by darkening one of my windows. have a manuscript by me called The 'Compleat Ogler,' which I fhall be ready to fhew you upon any occafion. In the mean time, I beg you will publifh the fubitance of this letter in an adver tifement, and you will very much oblige, C Your, &c.

N® XLVII.