= • The Italians fee a thousand beauties I am fenfible I have no pretence to, and abundantly make up to me the injuftice I received in my own country, of difallowing me what I really had. The humour of hiffing, which you have among you, I do not know any thing of; and their applaufes are uttered in fighs, and bearing a part at the cadences of voice with the perfons who are performing. I am often put in mind of thofe complaifant lines of my own countryman, when he is calling all his faculties together to hear • Arabella: "Let all be hufh'd, each foftest motion cease, "Be calm, as in the arms of death: "Let me be all but my attention dead." • The whole city of Venice is as ftill when I am finging < as this polite hearer was to Mrs. Hunt. But when they • break that filence, did you know the pleasure I am in • when every man utters his applaufes, by calling me aloud the "Dear Creature, the Angel, the Venus; "What attitude fhe moves with;-Hush, fhe fings again!" We have no boisterous wits who dare disturb an audience, and break the public peace merely to fhow they dare. Mr. SPECTATOR, I write this to you thus in hafte, to tell you I am fo very much at ease here, that I know nothing but joy, and I will not return, • but leave you in England to hifs all merit of your own growth off the ftage. I know, fir, you were always my admirer, and therefore I am yours, • CAMILLA, • P. S. I am ten times better dreffed than ever I was in England.' Mr. SPECTATOR, THE project in yours of the 11th inftant, of furthering the correfpondence and knowledge of that ⚫ confiderable part of mankind, the trading world, cannot but be highly commendable. Good lectures to young traders may have very good effects on their conduct but beware you propagate no falfe notions of trade; let none of your correfpondents impofe on the world, by putting forth base methods in a good light, ⚫ and glazing them over with improper terms. I would have no means of profit fet for copies to others, but fuch as are laudable in themselves. Let not noife be called industry, nor impudence courage. Let not good fortune be imposed on the world for good management, nor poverty be called folly; impute not always bankruptcy to extravagance, nor an eftate to forefight: niggardlinefs is not good husbandry, ner generofity profufion. < For Honeftus is a well-meaning and judicious trader, hath fubftantial goods, and trades with his own ftock, hufbands his money to the beft advantage, without taking all advantages of the neceffities of his workmen or grinding the face of the poor. tunatus is stocked with ignorance, and confequently with felf opinion; the quality of his goods cannot but be fuitable to that of his judgment. Honestus pleafes difcerning people, and keeps their cuftom by good ufage; makes modeft profit by modeft means, to the decent fupport of his family: whilft Fortunatus bluftering always, pushes on, promifing 'much and performing little; with obfequioufnels offenfive to people of fenfe, ftrikes at all, catches much the greater part; raifes a confiderable fortune by impofition on others, to the difcouragement and ruin of thofe who trade in the fame way. 6 I give here but loofe hints, and beg you to be very circumfpect in the province you have now undertaken: if you perform it fuccessfully, it will be a very great good; for nothing is more wanting, than that mechanic industry were fet forth with the freedom and greatness of mind which ought always to accompany a man of a liberal education. From my fhop under the Royal Exchange, July 14. 'Your humble fervant, 'R. C.' 66 July 24, 1712. Mr. SPECTATOR, "NOTWITHSTANDING the repeated cenfures that your spectatorial wifdom has paffed upon people more remarkable for impudence than wit, there are yet fome remaining, who país with the giddy part of man⚫ kind for fufficient fharers of the latter, who have nothing but the former qualification to recommend them. Another timely animadverfion is abfolutely neceffary; be pleafed therefore once for all to let thefe gentlemen know, that there is neither mirth nor good-humour in hooting a young fellow out of countenance; nor that it will ever constitute a wit, to conclude a tart piece of buffoonry, with a what makes you blush?" Pray please to inform them again, that to speak what they ⚫ know is fhocking, proceeds from ill-nature and a fterility of brain; efpecially when the fubject will not admit of raillery, and their difcourfe has no pretenfion to fatire but what is in their defign to difoblige. I fhould be very glad too if you would take notice, that a daily repetition of the fame over-bearing infolence is yet more infupportable, and a confirmation of very extraordinary dulnefs. The fudden publication of this may have an effect upon a notorious offender of this kind, whofe reformation would redound very much to the fatisfaction and quiet of T. Your most humble fervant, F. B.' N° 444. Wednesday, July 30. Parturiunt montes HOR. Ars Poet. v. 139. The mountain labours, and is brought to-bed. It gives me much defpair in the defign of reforming the world by my fpeculations, when I find there, always arife, from one generation to another, fucceffive cheats and bubbles, as naturally as beafts of prey, and those which are to be their food. There is hardly a man in the world, one would think, fo ignorant, as not to know that the ordinary quack-doctors, who publish their abilities in little brown billets, diftributed to all who pass by, are to a man impoftors and murderers; yet fuch is the credulity of the vulgar, and the impudence of these profeffors, that the affair ftill goes on, and new promifes of what was never done before, are made every day. What aggravates the jeft is, that even this promife has been made as long as the memory of man can trace it, and yet nothing performed, and yet ftill prevails. As I was paffing along to-day, a paper given into my hand by a fellow without a nofe, tells us as follows, what good news is come to town; to wit, that there is now a certain cure for the French difeafe, by a gentleman just come from his travels. In Ruffel-court, over against the Cannon-Ball, at the Surgeons-Arms, in Drury-Lane, is lately come from his travels a furgeon, who hath practifed furgery and phyfic both by fea and land thefe twenty-four years. He, by the bleffing, cures the yellow-jaundice, green-ficknefs, fcurvy, dropfy, furfeits, long fea-voyages, campaigns, and womens mifcarriages, lying in, &c. as fome people that has been lame thefe thirty years can testify; in fhort, he cureth all dif⚫eafes incident to men, women, or children,' If a man could be fo indolent as to look upon this kavock of the human fpecies which is made by vice and ignorance, it would be a good ridiculous work to comment upon the declaration of this accomplished traveller. There is fomething unaccountably taking among the vulgar in thofe who come from a great way off. Ignorant people of quality, as many there are of fuch, dote exceffively this way; many inftances of which every man will fuggeft to himself, without my enumeration of them. The ignorants of lower order, who cannot, like the upper ones, be profufe of their money to those recommended by coming from a distance, are no lefs complaifant than the others, for they venture their lives from the fame admiration. ་ The doctor is lately come from his travels, and has practifed both by fea and land, and therefore cures the green-ficknefs, long fea-voyages, campaigns and lying-in.'. Both by fea and land -I will not anfwer for the diftempers called fea-voyages and campaigns;' but I dare fay, thofe of green-ficknefs and lying-in' might be as well taken care of if the doctor ftaid afhore. But the art of managing mankind, is only to make them ftare a little to keep up their aftonishment, to let nothing be familiar to them, but ever to have fomething in your fleeve, in which they must think you are deeper than they are. There is an ingenious fellow a barber, of my acquaintance, who, befides his broken fiddle and a dried fea-monster, has a twine cord, ftrained with two nails, at each end, over his window, and the words rainy, dry, wet,' and fo forth, written to denote the weather, according to the rifing or falling of the cord. We very great scholars are not apt to wonder at this: but I obferved a very honeft fellow a chance cuftomer, who fat in the chair before me to be shaved, fix his eye upon this miraculous performance during the operation upon his chin and face. When thofe and his head alfo were cleared of all incum'rarces and excrefcences, he looked at the fish, then at the fiddle, ftill grubbling in his pockets, and cafting his eye again at the twine, and the words writ on each fde; then altered his mind as to farthings, and gave my friend a filver fixpence. The business, as I faid, is to keep up the amazement; and if my friend |