N° 22. MONDAY, MARCH 26, 1711.

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 5.

-Whatever contradicts my sense

I hate to see, and never can believe.-RoscOMMON.

THE word Spectator being most usually understood as one of the audience at public 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. But 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, imboldens me, who am the wild boar that was killed by Mrs. Tofts, to represent to you, that I think I was hardly used in not having the part of the lion of Hydaspes given to me. It would have been but a natural step for me to have personated that noble creature, after having behaved myself to satisfaction in the part abovementioned. 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 a hand. I must confess I had but just put on my brutality; and Camilla's charms were such, that beholding 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 admirer,

MR. SPECTATOR,

THOMAS PRONE.'

This is to let you understand, that the playhouse 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 Emperor of the Moon; I have twice performed the third chair in an English opera; and have rehearsed the pump in The Fortune-Hunters. 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 SCREENE.'.

MR. SPECTATOR, 'Understanding that Mr. Screene 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 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. Screene 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,

‹ SIR,

RALPH SIMPLE.'

Drury-lane, March 24, 1710-11. '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 Shakspeare; 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 human nature, that, in such incidents, passion gets the better of reason; and all we can think to combat 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 myself, who have long taken pains in personating the passions, I have to-night acted only an

appetite. The part I played 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. I am ashamed to tell you that I pleased very much, and this was introduced as a madness; but sure it was not human madness, for a mule or an ass may have been as dry as ever I was in my life.

I am, Sir, your most obedient

'MR. SPECTATOR,

and humble servant.'

'From the Savoy, in the Strand.

'If you can read it with dry eyes, I give you this trouble to acquaint you, that I am the unfortunate King Latinus, and I 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? The words were no sooner out of my mouth, when a serjeant knocked me down, and asked me if I had a mind to mutiny, in talking things nobody 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.'

ADVERTISEMENT.

For the good of the Public.

Within two doors of the masquerade lives an eminent Italian chirurgeon, arrived from the carnival at Venice, of great experience in private cures. Accommodations are provided, and persons admitted in their masquing habits.

He has cured since his coming hither, in less than a fortnight, four scaramouches, a mountebank doctor, two Turkish bassas, three nuns, and a morrisdancer.

N. B. Any person may agree by the great, and be kept in repair by the year. The doctor draws teeth without pulling off your masque.-R.

N° 23. TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1711.

Sævit atrox Volscens, nec teli conspicit usquam
Auctorem, nec quò se ardens immittere possit.

VIRG. Æn. ix. 420.

Fierce Volscens foams with rage, and gazing round,
Descry'd not him who gave the fatal wound;

Nor knew to fix revenge*.

DRYDEN.

THERE is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a

*The following endorsement at the top of this paper, No. 23, is in a set of the Spectator, in 12mo., of the edition in 1712, which contains some MS. notes by a Spanish merchant, who lived at the time of the original publication.

The character of Dr. Swift.'

This was Mr. Blundell's opinion, and whether it was wellgrounded, ill-grounded, or ungrounded, probably he was not singular in the thought. The intimacy between Swift, Steele, and Addison, was now over; and that they were about this time estranged, appears from Swift's own testimony, dated March 16, 1710-11.