NO. 35. THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1709.

Grecian Coffee-house, June 28.

THERE is an habit or custom which I have put my patience to the utmost stretch to have fuffered fo long, because several of my intimate friends are in the guilt; and that is, the humour of taking fnuff, and looking dirty about the mouth by way of ornament.

My method is to dive to the bottom of a fore before I pretend to apply a remedy. For this reafon, I fat by an eminent ftory-teller and politician who takes half an ounce in five feconds, and has mortgaged a pretty tenement near the town, merely to improve and dung his brains with this prolific powder. I obferved this gentleman, the other day, in the midft of a story diverted from it by looking at fomething at a distance, and I foftly hid his box. But he returns to his tale, and looking for his box, he cries, And fo fir-Then when he fhould have taken a pinch; As I was faying, fays he,Has no body feen my box? His friend befeeches him to finish his narration; then he proceeds: And fo, fir,-where can my box be? Then turning to me; Pray, fir, did you fee my box? Yes, fir, faid I, I took it to fee how long you could live without it. He refumes his tale, and I took notice that his dulnefs was much more regular and fluent than before. A pinch fupplied the place of, As I was faying, and fo, fir; and he went on currently enough in that ftyle, which the learned call the infipid. This obfervation eafily led me into a philosophic reason for taking fnuff, which is done only to fupply with fenfations the want of reflection. This I take to be an Eüçyna, a noftrum; upon which I hope to receive the thanks of this board. For as it is natural to lift a man's hand to a fore, when you fear any thing coming at you; fo when a perfon feels his thoughts are run out, and he has no more to fay, it is as natural to fupply his weak brain with powder at the nearest place of accefs, viz. the noftrils. This is fo

7

209 fo evident, that nature fuggefts the ufe according to the indigence of the perfons who take this medicine, without being prepoffeffed with the force of fathion or cuftom. For example; the native Hibernians, who are reckoned not much unlike the ancient Boeotians, take this specific for emptiness in the head, in greater abundance than any other nation under the fun. The learned Sotus, as fparing as he is of his words, would be ftill more filent if it were not for this powder.

However low and poor the taking fnuff argues a man to be in his own ftock of thoughts, or means to employ his brains and his fingers; yet there is a poorer creature in the world than he, and this is a borrower of snuff; à fellow that keeps no box of his own, but is always afking others for a pinch. Such poor rogues put me always in mind of a common phrase among school-boys when they are compofing their exercife, who run to an upper fcholar, and cry, Pray give me little fenfe. But of all things commend me to the ladies who are got into this pretty help to difcourfe. I have been thefe three years perfuading Sagiffa to leave it off; but the talks fo much, and is fo learned, that he is above contradiction. However, an accident the other day brought that about, which my eloquence never could accomplish. She had a very pretty fellow in her closet, who ran thither to avoid fome company that came to visit her: she made an excuse to go in to him for fome implement they were talking of. Her eager gallant fnatched a kifs; but being unused to snuff, fome grains from off her upper lip made him fneeze aloud, which alarmed the vifitants, and has made a difcovery, that profound reading, very much intelligence, and a general knowledge of who and who is together, cannot fill her vacant hours fo much, but that she is sometimes obliged to defcend to entertainments lefs intellectual,

White's

White's Chocolate-house, June 29.

I KNOW no manner of news from this place, but that Cynthio, having been long in defpair for the inexorable Clariffa, lately refolved to fall in love the good old way of bargain and fale, and has pitched upon a very agreeable young woman. He will undoubtedly fucceed; for he accosts her in a strain of familiarity, without breaking through the deference that is due to a woman whom a man would choose for his life. I have hardly ever heard rough truth spoken with a better grace than in this his letter.

'MADAM,

I WRIT to you on Saturday by Mrs. Lucy, and give you this trouble to urge the fame request I made then, which was, that I may be admitted to wait upon you. I fhould be very far from defiring this, if it were a tranfgreffion of the moft severe rules to allow it: I know you are very much above the little arts which are frequent in your fex, of giving unneceffary torments to their admirers; therefore hope you will do fo much juftice to the generous paffion I have for you, as to let me have an opportunity of acquainting you upon what motives I pretend to your good opinion. I fhall not trouble you with my fentiments, until I know how they will be received; and as I know no reason why difference of fex fhould make our language to each other differ from the ordinary 'rules of right reafon, I fhall affect plainnefs and fincerity in my difcourfe to you, as much as other lovers do perplexity and rapture. Inftead of faying, I fhall die for you, I 'profefs I fhould be glad to lead my life with you: you are as beautiful, as witty, as prudent, and as good-humoured, as any woman breathing; but I must confefs to you, I regard all these excellencies as you will please to direct them, for my happiness or mifery. With me, madam, the only lafting motive to love is the hope of its becoming mutual. I beg of you to let Mrs. Lucy fend me word when I may attend you. I promise you I will talk of nothing but indifferent

different things; though, at the fame time, I know not how I fhall approach you in the tender moment of firk feeing you, after this declaration of,

Madam,

Your most obedient,

and most faithful,

humble fervant, &c.'

Will's Coffee-boufe, June 29.

HAVING taken a refolution, when plays are acted next winter by an entire good company, to publish obfervations from time to time on the performance of the actors, I think it but just to give an abstract of the laws of action, for the help of the less learned part of the audience, that they may rationally enjoy fo refined and inftructive a pleasure as a juft reprefentation of human life. The great errors in playing are admirably well expofed in Hamlet's directions to the actors, who are to play in his fuppofed tragedy; by which we fhall form our future judgments on their behaviour, and for that reason you have the difcourfe as follows:

your

Speak the fpeech as I pronounce it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouthe it as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoke my Tines: nor do not faw the air too much with hands, thus; but ufe all gently: for in the very torrent, tempeft, and, as I may fay, the whirlwind of paffion, you mult acquire and beget a temperance that may give it Imoothness. Oh! it offends me to the foul, to see a robuftous periwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to fplit the cars of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhows and noise. I could have fuch a fellow whipt for overdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. Be not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor : fuit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special obfervance, that you overtop not the inodefty

of

of nature; for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing, whofe end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold as it were the mirror up to nature; to fhew virtue her own features, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time its form and preffure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. The cenfures of which one must, in your allowance, overfway a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have feen play, and heard others praife, and that highly (not to fpeak it prophanely), that neither having the accent of Chriftian, Pagan, nor man, have fo ftrutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity fo abominably. This fhould be reformed altogether; and let thofe that play your elowns, fpeak no more than is fet down for them; for there be of them that will of themfelves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren fpectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome neceffary question of the play be then to be confidered; that is villanous, and fhews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.'

From my own Apartment, June 29.

Ir would be a very great obligation, and an affiftance to my treatise upon punning, if any one would please to inform me in what clafs among the learned who play with words, to place the author of the following letter.

• SIR, Nor long fince you were pleased to give us a chimerical account of the famous family of the Staffs, from whence I fuppofe you will infinuate, that it is the most ancient and numerous houfe in all Europe. But I pofitively deny that it is either, and wonder much at your audacious proceedings in this manner, fince it is well known, that our moft illuftrious, moft renowned, and moft celebrated Roman family of Ix has enjoyed the precedency to all others, from the reign of good old Saturn. I could

fay