SIR,

TO THE SPECTATOR.

Devonshire, Nov. 14, 1711.

THERE arrived in this neighbourhood twa days ago one of your gay gentlemen of the town, who being attended at his entry with a servant of his own, besides a countryman he had taken up for a guide, excited the curiosity of the village to learn whence and what he might be. The countryman (to whom they applied as most easy of access) knew little more than that the gentleman came from London to travel and see fashions, and was, as he heard say, a free-thinker *. What religion that might be, he could not tell: and for his own part, if they had not told him the man was a free-thinker, he should have guessed, by his way of talking, he was little better than a heathen; excepting only that he had been a good gentleman to him, and made him drunk twice in one day, over and above what they had bargained for.

I do not look upon the simplicity of this, and several odd inquiries with which I shall not trouble you, to be wondered at, much less can I think our youths of fine wit, and enlarged understandings, have any reason to laugh. There is no necessity that every 'squire in Great Britain should know what the word free-thinker stands for; but it were much to be wished, that they who value themselves upon that conceited title, were a little better instructed in what it ought to stand for; and that they would not persuade themselves a man is really and truly a free-thinker, in any tolerable sense, merely by virtue of his being an atheist, or an infidel of

*The person here alluded to was probably Mr. Toland, who is said by the Examiner to have been the butt of the Tatler and Spectator.

any other distinction. It may be doubted with good reason, whether there ever was in nature a more abject, slavish, and bigotted generation than the tribe of beaux-esprits, at present so prevailing in this island. Their pretension to be free-thinkers, is no other than rakes have to be free-livers, and savages to be free-men; that is, they can think whatever they have a mind to, and give themselves up to whatever conceit the extravagancy of their inclination, or their fancy, shall suggest; they can think as wildly as they talk and act, and will not endure that their wit should be controuled by such formal things as decency and common sense. Deduction, coherence, consistency, and all the rules of reason they accordingly disdain, as too precise and mechanical for men of a liberal education.

'This, as far as I could ever learn from their writings, or my own observation, is a true account of the British free-thinker. Our visitant here, who gave occasion to this paper, has brought with him a new system of common sense, the particulars of which I am not yet acquainted with, but will lose no opportunity of informing myself whether it contain any thing worth Mr. Spectator's notice. In the mean time, Sir, I cannot but think it would be for the good of mankind, if you would take this subject into you consideration, and convince the hopeful youth of our nation, that licentiousness is not freedom; or, if such a paradox will not be understood, that a prejudice towards atheism is not impartiality.

T.

I am, SIR,

Your most humble servant,

PHILONOUS,'

N° 235, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1711.

-Populares

Vincentem strepitus

HOR. Ars Poet, v. 81.

Awes the tumultuous noises of the pit.

ROSCOMMON.

THERE is nothing which lies more within the province of a Spectator than public shows and diversions; and as among these there are none which can pretend to vie with those elegant entertainments that are exhibited in our theatres, I think it particularly incumbent on me to take notice of every thing that is remarkable in such numerous and refined assemblies.

It is observed, that of late years there has been a certain person in the upper gallery of the play, house, who when he is pleased with any thing that is acted upon the stage, expresses his approbation by a loud knock upon the benches or the wainscot, which may be heard over the whole theatre. The person is commonly known by the name of the Trunk-maker in the upper gallery. Whether it be that the blow he gives on these occasions resembles that which is often heard in the shops of such artisans, or that he was supposed to have been a real trunk-maker, who after the finishing of his day's work used to unbend his mind at these public diversions with his hammer in his hand, I cannot certainly tell. There are some, I know, who have been foolish enough to imagine it is a spirit which haunts the upper gallery, and from time to time makes those strange noises; and the rather, because

he is observed to be louder than ordinary every time the ghost of Hamlet appears. Others have reported, that it is a dumb man, who has chosen this way of uttering himself when he is transported with any thing he sees or hears. Others will have it to be the play-house thunderer, that exerts himself after this manner in the upper gallery, when he has nothing to do upon the roof.

But having made it my business to get the best information I could in a matter of this moment, I find that the trunk-maker, as he is commonly called, is a large black man, whom no body knows. He generally leans forward on a huge oaken plant with great attention to every thing that passes upon the stage. He is never seen to smile; but upon hearing any thing that pleases him, he takes up his staff with both hands, and lays it upon the next piece of timber that stands in his way with exceeding vehemence: after which, he composes himself in his former posture, till such time as something new sets him again at work.

It has been observed, his blow is so well timed, that the most judicious critic could never except against it. As soon as any shining thought is expressed in the poet, or any uncommon grace appears in the actor, he smites the bench or wainscot. If the audience does not concur with him, he smites a second time, and if the audience is not yet awakened, looks round him with great wrath, and repeats the blow a third time, which never fails to produce the clap. He sometimes lets the audience begin the clap of themselves, and at the conclusion of their applause ratifies it with a single thwack.

He is of so great use to the play-house, that it is said a former director of it, upon his not being able to pay his attendance by reason of sickness, kept one in pay to officiate for him until such time

as he recovered; but the person so employed, though he laid about him with incredible violence, did it in such wrong places, that the audience soon found out that it was not their old friend the trunkmaker.

upon

It has been remarked, that he has not yet exerted himself with vigour this season. He sometimes plies at the opera; and Nicolini's first appear ance, was said to have demolished three benches in the fury of his applause. He has broken half a dozen oaken plants upon Dogget*, and seldom goes away from a tragedy of Shakspeare, without leaving the wainscot extremely shattered.

The players do not only connive at his obstreperous approbation, but very cheerfully repair at their own cost whatever damages he makes. They once had a thought of erecting a kind of wooden anvil for his use, that should be made of a very sounding plank, in order to render his strokes more deep and mellow; but as this might not have been distin guished from the music of a kettle drum, the project was laid aside.

In the mean while, I cannot but take notice of the great use it is to an audience, that a person should thus preside over their heads like the director of a concert, in order to awaken their attention, and beat time to their applauses; or to raise my simile, I have sometimes fancied the trunk-maker in the upper-gallery to be like Virgil's ruler of the winds, seated upon the top of a mountain, who when he struck his sceptre upon the side of it, roused a hurricane, and set the whole cavern in an uproart.

*Thomas Dogget, an excellent comic actor, who was for many years joint-manager of the play house with Wilkes and Colley Cibber, of whom the reader may find a particular account in Cibber's Apology for his own Life,

+ Æneid i. 85. 9