thor should be required to mount, and stand his hour, who will not give a plain man leave to enjoy an exposed to the apples and oranges of the pit; this amende honorable would well suit with the meanness of some authors, who in their prologues fairly prostrate their sculls to the audience, and seem to invite a pelting. Or why should they not have their pens publicly broke over their heads, as the swords of recreant knights in old times were, and an oath administered to them that they should never write again. The provocations to which a dramatic genius is exposed from the public are so much the more vexatious, as they are removed from any possibility of retaliation, the hope of which sweetens most other injuries-for the public never writes itself.-Not but something very like it took place at the time of the O.-P. differences. The placards which were nightly exhibited, were, properly speaking, the composition of the public. The public wrote them, the public applauded them, and precious morceaux of wit and eloquence they were; except some few, of a better quality, which it is well known were furnished by professed dramatic writers. After this specimen of what the public can do for itself, it should be a little slow in condemning what others do for it. As the degrees of malignancy vary in people according as they have more or less of the Old Serpent (the father of hisses) in their composition, I have sometimes amused myself with analyzing this many-headed hydra, which calls itself the public, into the component parts of which it is "complicated, head and tail," and seeing how many varieties of the snake kind it can afford. First, there is the Common English Snake.-This is that part of the auditory who are always the majority at damnations, but who, having no critical venom in themselves to sting them on, stay till they hear others hiss, and then join in for company. The Blind Worm is a species very nearly allied to the foregoing. Some naturalists have doubted whether they are not the same. evening's entertainment, but with their frothy jargon, and incessant finding of faults, either drown his pleasure quite, or force him in his own defence to join in their clamorous censure. The hiss always originates with these. When this creature springs his rallie, you would think, from the noise it makes, there was something in it; but you have only to examine the instrument from which the noise proceeds, and you will find it typical of a critic's tongue, a shallow membrane, empty, voluble, and seated in the most contemptible part of the creature's body. The Whip Snake.-This is he that lashes the poor author the next day in the newspapers. The Deaf Adder, or Surda Echidna of Linnets Under this head may be classed all that porta af the spectators (for audience they properly are not who not finding the first act of a piece answer to their preconceived notions of what a first act should be like Obstinate, in John Bunyan, positively thr their fingers in their ears, that they may not bear a word of what is coming, though perhaps the very next act may be composed in a style as different possible, and be written quite to their own tac These adders refuse to hear the voice of the char because the tuning of his instrument gave the offence. were to go through all the classes of the serpe I proceed with more pleasure to give an accr of a club to which I have the honour to be There are fourteen of us, who are all anthers have been once in our lives what is called We meet on the anniversaries of our respective t and make ourselves merry at the expense of the pr lic. The chief tenets which distinguish our and which every man among us is bound whi gospel, are, The Rattle Snake.-These are your obstreporous That the public, or mob, in all ages, have b talking critics,—the impertinent guides of the pit, a set of blind, deaf, obstinate, senseless, THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER. avages. That no man of genius in his senses would | the proposition, we lost the benefit of that highly sabe ambitious of pleasing such a capricious, ungrate- lutary and antidotal dish. The privilege of admisful rabble. That the only legitimate end of writing sion to our club is strictly limited to such as have. for them is to pick their pockets, and, that failing, been fairly damned. A piece that has met with ever two, and then gone out, will never entitle its author An exception to our usual reawe are at full liberty to vilify and abuse them as so little applause, that has but languished its night or much as ever we think fit. to a seat among us. diness in conferring this privilege is, in the case of a writer, who, having been once condemned, writes again, and becomes candidate for a second martyrdom. Simple damnation we hold to be a merit, but to be twice damned we adjudge infamous. Such a one we utterly reject, and black ball without a The common damn'd shun his society. Hoping that this publication of our regulations may be a means of inviting some more members into our society, I conclude this history. SEMEL DAMNATUS. That authors, by their affected pretences to humility, which they made use of as a cloak to insinuate their writings into the callous senses of the multitude, obtuse to every thing but the grossest flattery, have by degrees made that great beast their master; as we may act submission to children till we are obliged to practise it in earnest. That authors are and ought to be considered the masters and preceptors of the pub-hearing: That it was so in the days lic, and not vice versa. of Orpheus, Linus, and Musæus, and would be so again, if it were not that writers prove traitors to themselves. That in particular, in the days of the first of those three great authors just mentioned, audiences appear to have been perfect models of what An author had just seen one of his pieces damned audiences should be; for though along with the trees and the rocks and the wild creatures, which he drew affer him to listen to his strains, some serpents doubt-at the theatre, when he had somewhat recovered from less came to hear his music, it does not appear that the mortification of this fall, he went to visit the any one among them ever lifted up a dissentient voice. actress who had played the principal part; he told They knew what was due to authors in those days. her, in the hope that she would say something to that, besides, his friends were wrong for having Now every stock and stone turns into a serpent, aud console him, that the public was not always just; has a voice. That the terms "Courteous Reader" and "Can-pressed him so much to write, and that the fruit was it has, however, fallen." did Auditors," as having given rise to a false notion not yet ripe.-" Oh, ripe or not," replied the actress, in those to whom they were applied, as if they conferred upon them some right, which they cannot have, of exercising their judgments, ought to be utterly banished and exploded, These are our distinguishing tenets. To keep up the memory of the cause in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat, a supposed unhealthy animal, to Esculapias, on our feast-nights we cut up a goose, an animal typical of the popular voice, to the deities of Candour and Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once proposed that we should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth; but the stomachs of some of the company rising at ་་ PREMATURE FRUIT, SPANISH PRIDE. A Spanish ambassador was one day vaunting to Henry IV. of France, the power of his master. The king, in order to take down the Spaniard's vanity, observed to him, with a lively air of raillery, that if he were to take it into his head to get on horseback, he could go and breakfast at Milan, hear mass at Rome, and dine at Naples. "Sire," replied the ambassador, "if your majesty travels so fast, you might also go and hear vespers at Sicily on the same day." THE TYBURN TRAGEDY. On the Murder of John Hays, by his wife Catherine, in 1726, for which she was burnt alive at Tyburn, May 9, in the same year. In Tyburn-road, a man there liv'd Full twice a day to church he went, Sure never was a saint on earth, If that no saint was he! This vex'd his wife unto the heart, But then her heart began to relent, She cut him into four. All in the dark and dead of night, His marrow-bones she laid. Soon caus'd this head for to be thrown This head being found, the justices And all agreed there must have been But, since no body could be found, Next, that it no self-murder was, The case itself explains, For no man could cut off his head, God prosper long our noble king, And grant that we may take advice ON BURIAL SOCIETIES. I was once amused with having the following tice thrust into my hand by a man who gives out at the corner of Fleet-market. Whether he saw y prognostics about me, that made him judge sa notice seasonable, I cannot say; I might perhaps carry in a countenance (naturally not very traces of a fever which had not long left me." Th fellows have a good instinctive way of guessing the sort of people that are likeliest to pay atten to their papers. BURIAL SOCIETY. "A favourable opportunity now offers to any per son, of either sex, who would wish to be baried genteel manner, by paying one shilling extras, and two pence per week for the benefit of the six. Members to be free in six months. The most be paid at Mr. Middleton's, at the sign of the Find and the Last, Stonecutter's-street, Fleet-marit deceased to be furnished as follows: a str coffin, covered with superfine black, and fres with two rows, all round, close drove, best japanned nails, and adorned with ornamental a bandsome plate of inscription, angel above, flower beneath, and four pair of handsome dar with wrought gripes; the coffin to be well p THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER. jined, and ruffled with fine crape; a handsome crape shroud, cap, and pillow. For use, a handsome velvet pall, three gentlemen's cloaks, three crape hatbands, three hoods and scarfs, and six pair of gloves; two porters equipped to attend the funeral, a man to attend the same with band and gloves; also the burial fees paid, if not exceeding one guinea." had been more solicitous to defend it from dishonours at its dissolution, than careful to pamper it with good things in the time of its union. If Cæsar were chiefly anxious at his death how he might die most decently, every Burial Society may be considered as a club of Cæsars. Nothing tends to keep up in the imaginations of "Man," says Sir Thomas Browne, "is a noble the poorer sort of people a generous horror of the workhouse more than the manner in which pauper animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.' Whoever drew up this little advertisement, certainly funerals are conducted in this metropolis. The coffin understood this appetite in the species, and has made nothing but a few naked planks, coarsely put together, abundant provision for it. It really almost induces the want of a pall (that decent and well-imagined a tædium vitæ upon one to read it. Methinks I could veil, which, hiding the coffin that hides the body, be willing to die, in death to be so attended. The keeps that which would shock us at two removes two rows all round close-drove best black japanned from us), the coloured coats of the men that are nails. how feelingly do they invite and almost hired, at cheap rates, to carry the body,-altogether, irresistibly persuade us to come and be fastened down. give the notion of the deceased having been some What aching head can resist the temptation to repose, person of an ill-life and conversation, some one who which the crape shroud, the cap, and the pillow, may not claim the entire rites of burial,-one by present? what sting is there in death, which the whom some parts of the sacred ceremony would be handles with wrought gripes are not calculated to desecrated if they should be bestowed upon him. I pluck away? what victory in the grave, which the meet these meagre processions sometimes in the street. drops and the velvet pall do not render at least They are sure to make me out of humour and melanextremely disputable? but above all, the pretty em- choly all the day after. They have a harsh and blematic plate with angel above and flower beneath, ominous aspect. takes me mightily. If there is any thing in the prospectus issued from The notice goes on to inform us, that though the Mr. Middleton's, Stonecutter's-street, which pleases society has been established but a very few years, me less than the rest, it is to find, that the six pair upwards of eleven hundred persons have put down of gloves are to be returned, that they are only lent, their names. It is really an affecting consideration as the bill expresses it, for use, on the occasion. The to think of so many poor people, of the industrious hoods, scarfs, and hatbands, may properly enough be and hard-working class (for none but such would be given up after the solemnity; the cloaks no gentlepossessed of such a generous forethought) clubbing man would think of keeping; but a pair of gloves, their twopences to save the reproach of a parish once fitted on, ought not in courtesy to be refuneral. Many a poor fellow, I dare swear, has that demanded. The wearer should certainly have the angel and flower kept from the Angel and Punch-fee-simple of them. The cost would be but trifling, bowl, while, to provide himself a bier, he has curtailed himself of beer. Many a savoury morsel has the living body been deprived of, that the lifeless one might be served up in a richer state to the worms. And sure, if the body could understand the actions of the soul, and entertained generous notions of things, it would thank its provident partner, that she and they would be a proper memorial of the day. This part of the proposals wants reconsidering. It is not conceived in the same liberal way of thinking as the rest. I am also a little doubtful whether the limit, within which the burial-fee is made payable, should not be extended to thirty shillings. Some provision too ought to be made in favour of THE DEJEUNE. A PINDABIC OBE And was the sorrow so profound, those well-intentioned persons and well-wishers to part to make appear pretended, said to him in a the fund, who having all along paid their subscrip- low tone,-" So, you have the misfortune to be tions regularly, are so unfortunate as to die before deaf, sir?" "Yes, sir." "You have great difficulty the six months, which would entitle them to their in hearing?" "Yes, sir, very." "And it was ni freedom, are quite completed. One can hardly till I raised my voice thus (lowering it still more) imagine a more distressing case than that of a poor that you could hear what I said at all?" No, sir." fellow lingering on in a consumption till the period of his freedom is almost in sight, and then finding himself going with a velocity which makes it doubtful whether he shall be entitled to his funeral honours: his quota to which he nevertheless squeezes out, to the diminution of the comforts which sickness demands. I think, in such cases, some of the contribution-money ought to revert. With some such modifications, which might easily be introduced, I see nothing in these proposals of Mr. Middleton which is not strictly fair and genteel; and heartily recommend them to all persons of moderate incomes, in either sex, who are willing that this perishable part of them should quit the scene of its mortal activities with as handsome circumstances as possible. Before I quit the subject, I must guard my readers against a scandal which they may be apt to take at the place whence these proposals purport to be issued. From the sign of the First and the Last, they may conclude that Mr. Middleton is some publican, who, in assembling a club of this description at his house, may have a sinister end of his own, altogether foreign to the solemn purpose for which the club is pretended to be instituted. I must set them right by informing them, that the issuer of these proposals is no publican, though he hangs out a sign, but an honest superintendant of funerals, who, by the device of a cradle and coffin, connecting both ends of human existence together, has most ingeniously contrived to insinuate, that the framers of these first and last receptacles of mankind divide this our life betwixt them, and that all that passes from the midwife to the undertaker may, in strict propriety, go for nothing: an awful and instructive lesson to human vanity. ACCOMMODATING DEAFNESS. Mr. Garrow in examining a witness who happened to be deaf, and whose deafness it was Mr. G.'s So deep the anguish of despair (Though grief, my stomach's pride defeating, I know for I, with sorrow quell'd, I His out-spread pride, and pomp of glorious dishes. I see him-yes, I recognise him; High 'mid the scene, in kingly state, |