N° 22. TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli. JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whatever good is done, whatever ill- White's Chocolate-house, May 28. 6 I CAME hither this evening to see fashions; and who should I first encounter but my old friend Cynthio' (encompassed by a crowd of young fellows) dictating on the passion of love with the gayest air imaginable! Well,' says he, as to what I know of the matter, there is nothing but ogling with skill carries a woman; but indeed it is not every fool that is capable of this art; you will find twenty can speak eloquently, fifty that can fight manfully, and a thousand that can dress genteelly at a mistress, where there is one that can gaze skilfully. This requires an exquisite judgment, to take the language of her eyes to yours exactly, and not let yours talk too fast for hers; as at a play between the acts, when beau Frisk stands upon a bench full in Lindamira's face, and her dear eyes are searching round to avoid that flaring open fool; she meets the watchful glance of her true lover, and sees his heart attentive on her charms, and waiting for a second twinkle of her eye for its next motion.' Here the good company sneered; but he goes on. Nor is this attendance a slavery, when a man 1 See Tat. N° 1, 5, 35, and 85. meets with encouragement, and her eye comes often in his way for, after an evening so spent, and the repetition of four or five significant looks at him, the happy man goes home to his lodging full of ten thousand pleasing images: his brain is dilated, and gives him all the ideas and prospects which it ever lets into its seat of pleasure. Thus a kind look from Lindamira revives in his imagination all the beauteous lawns, green fields, woods, forests, rivers, and solitudes, which he had ever before seen in picture, description, or real life: and all with this addition, that he now sees them with the eyes of a happy lover, as before only with those of a common man. laugh, gentlemen; but consider yourselves (ye common people that were never in love) and compare yourselves in good humour with yourselves out of humour, and ye will then acknowledge, that all external objects affect you according to the dispositions ye are in to receive their impressions, and not as those objects are in their own nature. How much more shall all that passes within his view and observation touch with delight a man who is prepossessed with successful love, which is an assemblage of soft affection, gay desires, and hopeful resolutions? You Poor Cynthio went on at this rate to the crowd about him, without any purpose in his talk, but to vent an heart overflowing with sense of success. I wondered what could exalt him from the distress, in which he had long appeared, to so much alacrity: but my Familiar has given me the state of his affairs. It seems, then, that lately coming out of the playhouse, his mistress, who knows he is in her livery, as the manner of insolent beauties is, resolved to keep him still so, and gave him so much wages as to complain to him of the crowd she was to pass through. He had his wits and resolution enough about him to take her hand, and say, he would attend her to the coach. All the way thither my good young man stammered at every word, and stumbled at every step. His mistress, wonderfully pleased with her triumph, put to him a thousand questions, to make a man of his natural wit speak with hesitation; and let drop her fan, to see him recover it awkwardly. This is the whole foundation of Cynthio's recovery to the sprightly air he appears with at present. I grew mighty curious to know something more of that lady's affairs, as being amazed how she could dally with an offer of one of his merit and fortune. I sent Pacolet to her lodgings, who immediately brought me back the following letter to her friend and confidant Amanda in the country, wherein she has opened her heart and all its folds. 'DEAR AMANDA, THE town grows so empty, that you must expect my letter so too, except you will allow me to talk of myself instead of others: you cannot imagine what pain it is, after a whole day spent in public, to want your company, and the ease which friendship allows in being vain to each other, and speaking all our minds. An account of the slaughter which these unhappy eyes have made within ten days last past, would make me appear too great a tyrant to be allowed in a Christian country. I shall therefore confine myself to my principal conquests, which are the hearts of beau Frisk and Jack Freeland, besides Cynthio, who, you know, wore my fetters before you went out of town. Shall I tell you my weakness? I begin to love Frisk it is the best-humoured impertinent thing in the world: he is always too in waiting, and will cer tainly carry me off one time or other. Freeland's father and mine have been upon treaty without consulting me; and Cynthio has been eternally watching my eyes, without approaching me, my friends, my maid, or any one about me: he hopes to get me, I believe, as they say the rattle-snake does the squirrel, by staring at me until I drop into his mouth. Freeland demands me for a jointure, which he thinks deserves me; Cynthio thinks nothing high enough to be my value: Freeland therefore will take it for no obligation to have me; and Cynthio's idea of me is what will vanish by knowing me better. Familiarity will equally turn the veneration of the one, and the indifference of the other, into contempt. I will stick therefore to my old maxim, to have that sort of man, who can have no greater views than what are in my power to give him possession of. The utmost of my dear Frisk's ambition is, to be thought a man of fashion; and therefore has been so much in mode, as to resolve upon me, because the whole town likes me. Thus I choose rather a man who loves me because others do, than one who approves me on his own judgment. He that judges for himself in love will often change his opinion; but he that follows the sense of others must be constant, as long as a woman can make advances. The visits I make, the entertainments I give, and the addresses I receive will be all arguments for me with a man of Frisk's secondhand genius; but would be so many bars to my happiness with any other man. However, since Frisk can wait, I shall enjoy a summer or two longer, and remain a single woman, in the sublime pleasure of being followed and admired; which nothing can equal, except that of being beloved by you. 'I am, &c.' Will's Coffee-house, May 30. My chief business here this evening was, to speak to my friends in behalf of honest Cave Underhill, who has been a comic for three generations: my father admired him extremely when he was a boy. There is certainly nature excellently represented in his manner of action; in which he ever avoided that general fault in players, of doing too much. It must be confessed, he has not the merit of some ingenious persons now on the stage, of adding to his authors; for the actors were so dull in the last age, that many of them have gone out of the world, without having ever spoke one word of their own in the theatre. Poor Cave is so mortified, that he quibbles, and tells you he pretends only to act a part fit for a man who has one foot in the grave, viz. a grave-digger3. All admirers of true comedy, it is hoped, will have the gratitude to be present on the last day of his acting, 2 See N° 20.-Colley Cibber says, 'Underhill was a correct and natural comedian; his particular excellence was in characters that may be called still-life, I mean the stiff, the heavy, and the stupid; to these he gave the exactest and most expressive colours; and in some of them looked as if it were not in the power of human passions to alter a feature of him. A countenance of wood could not be more fixed than his, when the blockhead of a character required it: his face was full and long; from his crown to the end of his nose, was the shorter half of it, so that the disproportion of his lower features, when soberly composed, threw him into the most lumpish, moping mortal, that ever made beholders merry! not but at other times he could be wakened into spirit equally ridiculous.' 3 In this character (in Shakspeare's Hamlet) he was particularly admired. |