which I am speaking of, is indeed written | whole house at some times in so proper a disposition, that indeed I have trembled for the boxes, and feared the entertainment would end in a representation of the rape of the Sabines. as if he hoped to please none but such as had as good a taste as himself. I could not but reflect upon the natural description of the innocent young woman made by the servant to his master. "When I came to the house,' said he, an old woman opened the door, and I followed her in, because I could, by entering upon them unawares, better observe what was your mistress's ordinary manner of spending her time, the only way of judging any one's inclinations and genius. I found her at her needle in a sort of second mourning, which she wore for an aunt she had lately lost. She had nothing on but what showed she dressed only for herself. Her hair hung negligently about her shoulders. She had none of the arts with which others use to set themselves off, but had that negligence of person which is remarkable in those who are careful of their minds. Then she had a maid who was at work near her that was a slattern, because her mistress was careless; which I take to be another argument of your security in her; for the go-betweens of women of intrigue are rewarded too well to be dirty. When you were named, and I told her you desired to see her, she threw down her work for joy, covered her face, and decently hid her tears.' He must be a very good actor, and draw attention rather from his own character than the words of the author, that could gain it among us for this speech, though so full of nature and good sense. The intolerable folly and confidence of players putting in words of their own, does in a great measure feed the absurd taste of the audience. But however that is, it is ordinary for a cluster of coxcombs to take up the house to themselves, and equally insult both the actors and the company. These savages, who want all manner of regard and deference to the rest of mankind, come only to show themselves to us, without any other purpose than to let us know they despise us. The gross of an audience is composed of two sorts of people, those who know no pleasure but of the body, and those who improve or command corporeal pleasures, by the addition of fine sentiments of the mind. At present, the intelligent part of the company are wholly subdued by the insurrections of those who know no satisfactions but what they have in common with all other animals. This is the reason that when a scene tending to procreation is acted, you see the whole pit in such a chuckle, and old letchers, with mouths open, stare at those loose gesticulations on the stage with shameful earnestness: when the justest pictures of human life in its calm dignity, and the properest sentiments for the conduct of it, pass by like mere narration, as conducing only to somewhat much better which is to come after. I have seen the I would not be understood in this talk to argue that nothing is tolerable on the stage but what has an immediate tendency to the promotion of virtue. On the contrary, I can allow, provided there is nothing against the interests of virtue, and is not offensive to good manners, that things of an indifferent nature may be represented. For this reason I have no exception to the welldrawn rusticities in the Country Wake; and there is something so miraculously pleasant in Dogget's acting the awkward triumph and comic sorrow of Hob in different circumstances, that I shall not be able to stay away whenever it is acted. All that vexes me is, that the gallantry of taking the cudgels for Gloucestershire, with the pride of heart in tucking himself up, and taking aim at his adversary, as well as the other's protestation in the humanity of low romance, that he could not promise the 'squire to break Hob's head, but he would, if he could do it in love; then flourish and begin: I say what vexes me is, that such excellent touches as these, as well as the 'squire's being out of all patience at Hob's success, and venturing himself into the crowd, are circumstances hardly taken notice of, and the height of the jest is only in the very point that heads are broken. I am confident, were there a scene written, wherein Pinkethman should break his leg by wrestling with Bullock, and Dicky come in to set it, without one word said but what should be according to the exact rules of surgery, in making this extension, and binding up his leg, the whole house should be in a roar of applause at the dissembled anguish of the patient, the help given by him who threw him down, and the handy address and arch looks of the surgeon. To enumerate the entrance of ghosts, the embattling of armies, the noise of heroes in love, with a thousand other enormities, would be to transgress the bounds of this paper, for which reason it is possible they may have hereafter distinct discourses; not forgetting any of the audience who shall set up for actors, and interrupt the play on the stage; and players who shall prefer the applause of fools to that of the reasonable part of the company. T. Postscript to the Spectator, No. 502. N. B. There are in the play of the SelfTormentor of Terence, which is allowed a most excellent comedy, several incidents which would draw tears from any man of sense, and not one which would move his laughter.-Spect. in folio, No. 521. This speculation, No. 502, is controverted in the Guard. No. 59, by a writer under the fictitious name of John Lizard; perhaps Doctor Edw. Young. No. 503.] Tuesday, October 7, 1712. Deleo omnes dehinc ex animo mulieres. Ter. Eun. Act ii. Sc. 3. From henceforward I blot out of my thoughts all me mory of womankind. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-You have often mentioned with great vehemence and indignation the misbehaviour of people at church; but I am at present to talk to you on that subject, and complain to you of one, whom at the same time I know not what to accuse of, except it be looking too well there, and diverting the eyes of the congregation to that one object. However, I have this to say, that she might have staid at her own parish, and not come to perplex those who are otherwise intent upon their duty. ed the churlish dislike and hesitation in approving what is excellent, too frequent among us, to a general attention and entertainment in observing her behaviour. All the while that we were gazing at her, she took notice of no object about her, but had an art of seeming awkwardly attentive, whatever else her eyes were accidentally thrown upon, One thing indeed was particular, she stood the whole service, and never kneeled or sat; I do not question but that it was to show herself with the greater advantage, and set forth to better grace her hands and arms, lifted up with the most ardent devotion; and her bosom, the fairest that was ever seen, bare to observation; while she, you must think, knew no'Last Sunday was seven-night I went thing of the concern she gave others, any into a church not far from London-bridge; other than as an example of devotion, that but I wish I had been contented to go to my threw herself out, without regard to dress own parish, I am sure it had been better or garment, all contrition, and loose of all for me; I say I went to church thither, and worldly regards in ecstacy of devotion. got into a pew very near the pulpit. I had Well; now the organ was to play a volunhardly been accommodated with a seat, tary, and she was so skilful in music, and before there entered into the aisle a young so touched with it, that she kept time not lady in the very bloom of youth and beauty, only with some motion of her head, but and dressed in the most elegant manner also with a different air in her countenance. imaginable. Her form was such that it When the music was strong and bold, she engaged the eyes of the whole congrega- looked exalted, but serious; when lively tion in an instant, and mine among the rest. and airy, she was smiling and gracious; Though we were all thus fixed upon her, when the notes were more soft and lanshe was not in the least out of countenance, guishing, she was kind and full of pity. or under the least disorder, though unat- When she had now made it visible to the tended by any one, and not seeming to whole congregation, by her motion and know particularly where to place herself. ear, that she could dance, and she wanted However, she had not in the least a confi- now only to inform us that she could sing dent aspect, but moved on with the most too; when the psalm was given out, her graceful modesty, every one making way un- voice was distinguished above all the rest, til she came to a seat just over-against that or rather people did not exert their own in in which I was placed. The deputy of the order to hear her. Never was any heard ward sat in that pew, and she stood oppo- so sweet and so strong. The organist obsite to him, and at a glance into the seat, served it, and he thought fit to play to her though she did not appear the least ac-only, and she swelled every note, when she quainted with the gentleman, was let in, found she had thrown us all out, and had with a confusion that spoke much admira- the last verse to herself in such a manner tion at the novelty of the thing. The ser- as the whole congregation was intent upon vice immediately began, and she composed her, in the same manner as we see in the herself for it with an air of so much good-cathedrals they are on the person who ness and sweetness, that the confession sings alone the anthem. Well; it came which she uttered, so as to be heard where at last to the sermon, and our young lady we sat, appeared an act of humiliation would not lose her part in that neither: for more than she had occasion for. The truth she fixed her eye upon the preacher, and is, her beauty had something so innocent, as he said any thing she approved, with and yet so sublime, that we all gazed upon one of Charles Mather's fine tablets she her like a phantom. None of the pictures set down the sentence, at once showing her which we behold of the best Italian paint- fine hand, the gold pen, her readiness in ers have any thing like the spirit which writing, and her judgment in choosing appeared in her countenance, at the differ- what to write. To sum up what I intend ent sentiments expressed in the several by this long and particular account, I apparts of divine service. That gratitude and peal to you, whether it is reasonable that joy at a thanksgiving, that lowliness and such a creature as this shall come from a sorrow at the prayers for the sick and dis- janty part of the town, and give herself tressed, that triumph at the passages which such violent airs, to the disturbance of an gave instances of the divine mercy, which innocent and inoffensive congregation, with appeared respectively in her aspect, will her sublimities. The fact, I assure you, be in my memory to my last hour. I pro- was as I have related: but I had like to test to you, sir, that she suspended the de- have forgot another very considerable parvotion of every one around her; and the ticular. As soon as church was done, she ease she did every thing with, soon dispers-immediately stepped out of her pew, and fell into the finest pitty-patty air, forsooth, who have the Latin tongue, such as use to wonderfully out of countenance, tossing her make what they call golden verses. Comhead up and down, as she swam along the mend me also to those who have not brains body of the church. I, with several others enough for any of these exercises, and yet of the inhabitants, followed her out, and do not give up their pretensions to mirth. saw her hold up her fan to a hackney- These can slap you on the back unawares, coach at a distance, who immediately came laugh loud, ask you how you do with a up to her, and she whipping into it with twang on your shoulders, say you are dull great nimbleness, pulled the door with a to-day, and laugh a voluntary to put you in bowing mien, as if she had been used to a humour; not to mention the laborious way better glass. She said aloud, "You know among the miner poets, of making things where to go," and drove off. By this time come into such and such a shape, as that of the best of the congregation was at the an egg, a hand, an axe, or any thing that church-door, and I could hear some say, nobody had ever thought on before for that "A very fine lady;" others, "I'll warrant purpose, or which would have cost them a you she is no better than she should be:" great deal of pains to accomplish if they and one very wise old lady said she ought did. But all these methods, though they to have been taken up. Mr. Spectator, I are mechanical, and may be arrived at think this matter lies wholly before you: with the smallest capacity, do not serve an for the offence does not come under any honest gentleman who wants wit for his law, though it is apparent this creature ordinary occasions; therefore it is absolutely came among us only to give herself airs, necessary that the poor in imagination and enjoy her full swing in being admired. should save something which may be serI desire you may print this, that she may viceable to them at all hours, upon all combe confined to her own parish; for I can mon occurrences. That which we call assure you there is no attending any thing punning is therefore greatly affected by else in a place where she is a novelty. men of small intellects. These men need She has been talked of among us ever not be concerned with you for the whole since, under the name of "the phantom:" sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, but I would advise her to come no more: or bring in a word which sounds like any for there is so strong a party made by the one word you have spoken to them, they women against her, that she must expect can turn the discourse, or distract you so they will not be excelled a second time in that you cannot go on, and by consequence, so outrageous a manner, without doing her if they cannot be as witty as you are, they some insult. Young women, who assume can hinder your being any wittier than they after this rate, and affect exposing them-are. Thus if you talk of a candle, he 'can selves to view in congregations at the other end of the town, are not so mischievous, because they are rivalled by more of the same ambition, who will not let the rest of the company be particular: but in the name of the whole congregation where I was, I desire you to keep these agreeable disturbances out of the city, where sobriety of manners is still preserved, and all glaring and ostentatious behaviour, even in things laudable, discountenanced. I wish you may never see the phantom, and am, sir, your most humble servant, T. RALPH WONDER.' No. 504.] Wednesday, October 8, 1712. Ter. Eun. Act iii. Sc. 1. You are a hare yourself, and want dainties, forsooth. Ir is a great convenience to those who want wit to furnish out a conversation, that there is something or other in all companies where it is wanted substituted in its stead, which, according to their taste, does the business as well. Of this nature is the agreeable pastime in country-halls of cross purposes, questions and commands, and the like. A little superior to these are those who can play at crambo, or cap verses. Then above them are such as can make verses, that is, rhyme; and among those deal' with you; and if you ask him to help you to some bread, a punster should think himself very 'ill-bred' if he did not; and if he is not as well-bred' as yourself, he hopes for grains' of allowance. If you do not understand that last fancy, you must recollect that bread is made of grain; and so they go on for ever, without possibility of being exhausted. There are another kind of people of small faculties, who supply want of wit with want of breeding; and because women are both by nature and education more offended at any thing which is immodest than we men are, these are ever harping upon things they ought not to allude to, and deal mightily in double meanings. Every one's own observation will suggest instances enough of this kind, without my mentioning any; for down through all parts of the town or city your double meaners are dispersed up and where there are any to offend, in order to set off themselves. These men are mighty loud laughers, and held very pretty gentlemen with the sillier and unbred part of womankind. But above all already mentioned, or any who ever were, or ever can be in the world, the happiest and surest to be pleasant, are a sort of people whom we have not indeed lately heard much of, and those are your biters.' A biter is one who tells you a thing you have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and perhaps has given you, before he bit you, | for the future will ever be able to equal, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; though I heartily wish him the same occaand, if you give him credit, laughs in your sion. It is a superstition with some surface, and triumphs that he has deceived geons who beg the bodies of condemned you. In a word, a biter is one who thinks malefactors, to go to the gaol, and bargain you a fool, because you do not think him a for the carcase with the criminal himself. knave. This description of him one may A good honest fellow did so last sessions, insist upon to be a just one; for what else and was admitted to the condemned men but a degree of knavery is it, to depend on the morning wherein they died. The upon deceit for what you gain of another, surgeon communicated his business, and be it in point of wit, or interest, or any fell into discourse with a little fellow, who thing else? refused twelve shillings, and insisted upon fifteen for his body. The fellow, who killed the officer of Newgate, very forwardly, and like a man who was willing to deaf, told him, 'Look you, Mr. Surgeon, that little dry fellow, who has been half starved all his life, and is now half dead with fear, cannot answer your purpose. I have ever lived highly and freely, my veins are full, I have not pined in imprisonment; you see my crest swells to your knife; and after Jack Catch has done, upon my honour you will find me as sound as ever a bullock in any of the markets. Come, for twenty shillings I am your man.' ' Says the surgeon, Done, there is a guinea.' This witty rogue took the money, and as soon as he had it in his fist, cries,Bite; I am to be hung in chains.' T. This way of wit is called biting,' by a metaphor taken from beasts of prey, which devour harmless and unarmed animals, and look upon them as their food wherever they meet them. The sharpers about town very ingeniously understood themselves to be to the undesigning part of mankind what foxes are to lambs, and therefore used the word biting, to express any exploit wherein they had over-reached any innocent and inadvertent man of his purse. These rascals of late years have been the gallants of the town, and carried it with a fashionable haughty air, to the discouragement of modesty, and all honest arts. Shallow fops, who are governed by the eye, and admire every thing that struts in vogue, took up from the sharpers the phrase of biting, and used it upon all occasions, either to disown any nonsensical stuff they should talk themselves, or evade the force of what was reasonably said by others. Thus, when one of No. 505.] Thursday, October 9, 1712. these cunning creatures was entered into a debate with you, whether it was practicable Non habeo denique nauci marsum augurem, Non vicanos aruspices, non de circo astrologos. in the present state of affairs to accomplish Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somnium; such a proposition, and you thought he had Non enim sunt ii, aut scientia, aut arte divina, let fall what destroyed his side of the ques- Aut inertes, aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat: Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque harioli, tion, as soon as you looked with an earnest-Qui sui questus causa fictas suscitant sententias, ness ready to lay hold of it, he immediately cried, Bite,' and you were immediately to acknowledge all that part was in jest. They carry this to all the extravagance imaginable; and if one of these witlings knows any particulars which may give authority to what he says, he is still the more ingenious if he imposes upon your credulity. I remember a remarkable instance of this kind. There came up a shrewd young fellow to a plain young man, his countryman, and taking him aside with a grave concerned countenance, goes on at this rate: 'I see you here, and have you heard nothing out of Yorkshire?-You look so surprised, you could not have heard of it-and yet the particulars are such that it cannot be false: I am sorry I am got into it so far that I must tell you; but I know not but it may be for your service to know. On Tuesday last, just after dinner-you know his manner is to smoke-opening his box, your father fell down dead in an apoplexy.' The youth showed the filial sorrow which he oughtUpon which the witty man cried, Bite, there was nothing in all this.' To put an end to this silly, pernicious, frivolous way at once, I will give the reader one late_instance of a bite, which no biter VOL. II. 34 Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam, De divitiis deducant drachmam, reddant cætera. Augurs and soothsayers, astrologers, THOSE Who have maintained that men would be more miserable than beasts, were their hopes confined to this life only, among other considerations take notice that the latter are only afflicted with the anguish of the present evil, whereas the former are very often pained by the reflection on what is passed, and the fear of what is to come. This fear of any future difficulties or misfortunes is so natural to the mind, that were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him, than from those evils which had really befallen him. To this we may add, that among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect, than by their actual pressure. This natural impatience to look into futurity, and to know what accidents may happen to us hereafter, has given birth to many ridiculous arts and inventions. Some found their prescience on the lines of a man's hand, others on the features of his face: some on the signatures which nature has impressed on his body, and others on his own hand-writing: some read men's fortunes in the stars, as others have searched after them in the entrails of beasts, or the flight of birds. Men of the best sense have been touched more or less with these groundless horrors and presages of futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent works of nature. Can any thing be more surprising than to consider Cicero,* who made the greatest figure at the bar and in the senate of the Roman Commonwealth, and at the same time outshined all the philosophers of antiquity in his library, and in his retirements, as busying himself in the college of augurs, and observing with a religious attention after what manner the chickens pecked the several grains of corn which were thrown to them. Notwithstanding these follies are pretty well worn out of the minds of the wise and learned in the present age, multitudes of weak and ignorant persons are still slaves to them. There are numberless arts of prediction among the vulgar, which are too trifling to enumerate, and infinite observation of days, numbers, voices, and figures, which are regarded by them as portents and prodigies. In short, every thing prophesies to the superstitious man; there is scarce a straw, or a rusty piece of iron that lies in his way by accident. It is not to be conceived how many wizzards, gipsies, and cunning men, are dispersed through all the counties and market-towns of Great Britain, not to mention the fortune-tellers and astrologers, who live tery comfortably upon the curiosity of several well-disposed persons in the cities of London and Westminster. | been the habitation of some prophetic Philomath; it having been usual, time out of mind, for all such people as have lost their wits to resort to that place, either for their cure or for their instruction. Moorfields, Oct. 4, 1712. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Having long considered whether there be any trade wanted in this great city, after having surveyed very attentively all kinds of ranks and professions, I do not find in any quarter of the town an oneiro-critic, or, in plain English, an interpreter of dreams. For want of so useful a person, there are several good people who are very much puzzled in this particular, and dream a whole year together, without being ever the wiser for it. I hope I am pretty well qualified for this office, having studied by candle-light all the rules of art which have been laid down upon this subject. My great uncle by my wife's side was a Scotch highlander, and second-sighted. I have four fingers and two thumbs upon one hand, and was born on the longest night of the year. My Christian and surname begin and end with the same letters. I am lodged in Moorfields, in a house that for these fifty years has always been tenanted by a conjurer. 'If you had been in company, so much as myself, with ordinary women of the town, you must know that there are many of them who every day in their lives, upon seeing or hearing of any thing that is unexpected, cry, "My dream is out;" and cannot go to sleep in quiet the next night, until something or other has happened which has expounded the visions of the preceding one. There are others who are in very great pain for not being able to recover the circumstances of a dream, that made strong impressions upon them while it lasted. In short, sir, there are many whose waking thoughts are wholly employed on their sleeping ones. For the benefit therefore of this curious and inquisitive part of my fellow-subjects, I shall in the first place tell those persons what they dreamt of, who fancy they never dream at all. In the next place I shall make out any dream, upon hearing a single circumstance of it; and in the last place, I shall expound to them the good or bad fortune which such dreams portend. If they do not presage good luck, I shall desire nothing for my pains; not questioning at the same time, that those who consult me will be so reasonable as to afford me a moderate share out of any considerable estate, profit, or emolument, which I shall discover to them. I interpret to the poor for nothing, on condition that their names may be inserted in public advertisements, to attest the truth of such my interpretations. As for people of quality, or others who are indisposed, and do not care to come in person, I can interpret it is said of him, that he wondered how one augur could their dreams by seeing their water. I set meet another without laughing in his face. aside one day in the week for lovers; and Among the many pretended arts of divination, there is none which so universally amuses as that by dreams. I have indeed observed in a late speculation, that there have been sometimes, upon very extraordinary occasions, supernatural revelations made to certain persons by this means; but as it is the chief business of this paper to root out popular errors, I must endeavour to expose the folly and superstition of those persons, who, in the common and ordinary course of life, lay any stress upon things of so uncertain, shadowy, and chimerical a nature. This I cannot do more effectually than by the following letter, which is dated from a quarter of the town that has always *This censure of Cicero seems to be unfounded: for |