thither, as most do, to show myself, I gratify the vanity of all who pretend to make an appearance, and have often as kind looks from well-dressed gentlemen and ladies as a poet would bestow upon one of his audience. There are so many gratifications attend this public sort of obscurity that some little distastes I daily receive have lost their anguish; and I did the other day,' without the least displeasure, overhear one say of me, 'That strange fellow,' and another answer, I have known the fellow's face these twelve years, and so must you; but I believe you are the first ever asked who he was.' There are, I must confess, many to whom my person is as well known as that of their nearest relations, who give themselves no further trouble about calling me by my name or quality, but speak of me very currently by 'Mr. What-d'ye-call-him.'

To make up for these trivial disadvantages, I have the high satisfaction of beholding all nature with an unprejudiced eye; and having nothing to do with men's passions or interests, I can with the greater sagacity consider their talents, manners, failings, and merits.

It is remarkable that those who want any one sense possess the others with greater force and vivacity. Thus my want of, or rather resignation of speech, gives me all the advantages of a dumb man. I have, methinks, a more than ordinary penetration in seeing, and flatter myself that I have looked into the highest and lowest of mankind, and make shrewd guesses, without being admitted to their conversation, at the inmost thoughts and reflections of all whom I behold. It is from hence that good or ill fortune has no manner of force 1 'And I can' (folio).

towards affecting my judgment. I see men flourishing in courts and languishing in jails without being prejudiced from their circumstances to their favour or disadvantage, but from their inward manner of bearing their condition, often pity the prosperous and admire the unhappy.

Those who converse with the dumb know from the turn of their eyes, and the changes of their countenance, their sentiments of the objects before them. I have indulged my silence to such an extravagance that the few who are intimate with me answer my smiles with concurrent sentences, and argue to the very point I shaked my head at without my speaking.' Will Honeycomb was very entertaining the other night at a play to a gentleman who sat on his right hand, while I was at his left. The gentleman believed Will was talking to himself when, upon my looking with great approbation at a young thing in a box before us, he said, 'I am quite of another opinion. She has, I will allow, a very pleasing aspect, but methinks that simplicity in her countenance is rather childish than innocent.' When I observed her a second time, he said, 'I grant her dress is very becoming, but perhaps the merit of that choice is owing to her mother; for though,' continued he, 'I allow a beauty to be as much to be commended for the elegance of her dress as a wit for that of his language, yet, if she has stolen the colour of her ribands from another, or had advice about her trimmings, I shall not allow her the praise of dress any more than I would call a plagiary an author."

1 John Dennis printed a letter to the Spectator at the end of his Essay on Shakespeare,' 1712, to show that those who think they know people's thoughts by their eyes are often mistaken. We really know very little of even those with whom we daily converse.'

When I threw my eye towards the next woman to her, Will spoke what I looked, according to his romantic imagination, in the following manner :

Behold, you who dare, that charming virgin. Behold the beauty of her person chastised by the innocence of her thoughts. Chastity, good nature, and affability are the graces that play in her countenance; she knows she is handsome, but she knows she is good. Conscious beauty adorned with conscious virtue! What a spirit is there in those eyes! What a bloom in that person! How is the whole woman expressed in her appearance! Her air has the beauty of motion, and her look the force of language.'

It was prudence to turn away my eyes from this object, and therefore I turned them to the thoughtless creatures who make up the lump of that sex, and move a knowing eye no more than the portraitures of insignificant people by ordinary painters, which are but pictures of pictures.

Thus the working of my own mind is the general entertainment of my life; I never enter into the commerce of discourse with any but my particular friends, and not in public even with them. Such a habit has perhaps raised in me uncommon reflections; but this effect I cannot communicate but by my writings. As my pleasures are almost wholly confined to those of the sight, I take it for a peculiar happiness that I have always had an easy and familiar admittance to the fair sex. If I never praised or flattered, I never belied or contradicted them. As these compose half the world, and are by the just complaisance and gallantry of our nation the more powerful part of our people, I shall dedicate a considerable share of these my

speculations to their service, and shall lead the young through all the becoming duties of virginity, marriage, and widowhood. When it is a woman's day, in my works, I shall endeavour at a style and air suitable to their understanding. When I say this, I must be understood to mean that I shall not lower but exalt the subjects I treat upon. Discourse for their entertainment is not to be debased but refined. A man may appear learned without talking sentences, as in his ordinary gesture he discovers he can dance, though he does not cut capers. In a word, I shall take it for the greatest glory of my work, if among reasonable women this paper may furnish tea-table talk. In order to it, I shall treat on matters which relate to females, as they are concerned to approach or fly from the other sex, or as they are tied to them by blood, interest, or affection. Upon this occasion I think it but reasonable to declare, that whatever skill I may have in speculation, I shall never betray what the eyes of lovers say to each other in my presence. At the same time I shall not think myself obliged by this promise to conceal any false protestations which I observe made by glances in public assemblies, but endeavour to make both sexes appear in their conduct what they are in their hearts. this means love, during the time of my speculations, shall be carried on with the same sincerity as any other affair of less consideration. As this is the greatest concern, men shall be from henceforth liable to the greatest reproach for misbehaviour in it. Falsehood in love shall hereafter bear a blacker aspect than infidelity in friendship, or villainy in

By

1 In 1716 Steele started a paper called the Tea-Table, but only three numbers appeared, and no copies seem to have been preserved.

business. For this great and good end all breaches against that noble passion, the cement of society, shall be severely examined. But this, and all other matters loosely hinted at now, and in my former papers, shall have their proper place in my following discourses. The present writing is only to admonish the world, that they shall not find me an idle, but a very busy spectator.

No. 5.

ΑΝ

Tuesday, March 6, 1711

Spectatum admissi risum teneatis?

R.

[ADDISON.

-HOR., Ars Poet. 5.

N opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses, and keep up an indolent attention in the audience. Common sense, however, requires that there should be nothing in the scenes and machines which may appear childish and absurd. How would the wits of King Charles's time have laughed, to have seen Nicolini1 exposed to a tempest in robes of ermine, and sailing in an open boat upon a sea of pasteboard? What a field of raillery would they have been let into, had they been entertained

See

1 Cavalier Nicolino Grimaldi, a Neapolitan actor and singer, appeared first in the opera Pyrrhus and Demetrius' (1709), a translation by Owen M'Swiny from the Italian of Scarlatti. Nicolini's voice, at first a soprano, changed to a contralto. Nos. 13, 405. In the Tatler (No. 115) Steele says that Nicolini 'sets off the character he bears in an opera by his action, as much as he does the words of it by his voice,' and Cibber thought that none of his successors equalled Nicolini, who, by pleasing the eye as well as the ear, filled us with a more various and rational delight.'