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parts, I defire, if you give him motion or fpeech, that you would advance me in my way, and let me keep on in what I humbly prefume I am a mafter; to wit, in reprefenting human and ftill life together. I have feveral times acted one of the fineft flower-pots in the fame opera wherein Mr. Screne is a chair; therefore, upon his promotion, request that I may fucceed him in the hangings, with my hand in the orange-trees.

Your humble fervant,

RALPH SIMPLE.'

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• Sir,

Drury-Lane, March 24, 1710-11. 'I SAW your friend the Templar this evening in the pit, and thought he looked very little pleafed with the reprefentation of the mad fcene of the Pilgrim. I with, Sir, you would do us the favour to animadvert frequently upon the falfe tafte the town is in, with relation to plays as well as operas. It certainly requires a degree of underftanding to play juftly; but fuch is our condition, that we are to fufpend our reafon to perform our parts. As to fcenes of madnefs, you know, " Sir, there are noble inftances of this kind in Shakefpear; but then it is the difturbance of a noble mind, from generous and humane refentments; it is like that grief which we have for the decease of our friends; it is no diminution but a recommendation of human nature, that in fuch incidents paflion gets the better of 'reafon; and all we can think to comfort ourselves, is impotent against half what we feel. I will not mention that we had an idiot in the fcene, and all the fenfe it is reprefented to have is that of luft. As for myself, who have long taken pains in perfonating the paffions, I have to-night acted only an appetite. The part played is thirst, but it is reprefented as written rather by a drayman than a poet. I come in with a tub about me; that tub hung with quart-pots, with a full gallon at my mouth. I am ashamed to tell you that

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I pleated

• I pleafed very much, and this was introduced as a mad• nefs; but fure it was not human madness, for a mule or an afs may have been as dry as ever I was in my

life.

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• I am, Sir,

Your moft obedient and humble fervant.'

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• Mr. Spe&tator,

From the Savoy in the Strand. ·

IF you can read it with dry eyes, I give you this 'trouble to acquaint you, that I am the unfortunate king Latinus; and believe I am the first prince that dated from this palace fince John of Gaunt. Such is the uncertainty of all human greatness, that I, who lately never moved without a guard, am now preffed as a common foldier, and am to fail with the firft fair wind against my brother Lewis of France. It is a very hard thing to put off a character which one has appeared in with applaufe: this I experienced fince the lofs of my diadem; for, upon quarrelling with an• other recruit, I fpoke my indignation out of my part in recitativo :

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Moft audacious flave,

"Dar'st thou an angry monarch's fury brave!

The words were no fooner out of my mouth, when a ferjeant knocked me down, and asked me if I had a • mind to mutiny, in talking things nobody understood. You fee, Sir, my unhappy circumstances; and if by your meditation you can procure a fubfidy for a prince (who never failed to make all that beheld him merry at his appearance) you will merit the thanks of

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• Your friend,

The KING of LATIUM.'

"ADVERTISEMENT.

"ADVERTISEMENT.

"FOR THE GOOD OF THE PUBLIC.

"Within two doors of the Mafquerade lives an emi66 nent Italian Chirurgeon, arrived from the Carnival at "Venice, of great experience in private cures. Accom. ❝modations are provided, and perfons admitted in their "mafquing habits.

"He has cured fince his coming hither, in lefs than 66 a fortnight, four Scaramouches, a Mountebank"Doctor, two Turkish Baffas, three Nuns, and a Mor"ris-dancer.

"Venienti occurrite morbo. "N. B. Any perfon may agree by the great, and be "kept in repair by the year. The doctor draws teeth

"without pulling off your

mafk."

R

No. XXIII. TUESDAY, MARCH 27.

Sævit atrox Volfcens, nec teli confpicit ufquam
Auctorem, nec quo fe ardens immittere poffit. VIRG.

Fierce Volfcens foams with rage, and, gazing round,
Defcry'd not him who gave the fatal wound;
Nor knew to fix revenge.-

DRYDEN.

THERE is nothing that more betrays a bafe ungenerous fpirit, than the giving of fecret ftabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and fatires that are written with wit and fpirit, are like poifoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. For this reafon I am very much troubled when I fee the talents of humour and ridicule in the poffeffion of an ill-natured man. There cannot be a greater gratification to a barbarous and inhuman wit, than to ftir up forrow in the heart of a private perfon, to raise uneafinefs among near relations, and to expofe whole families to derifion, at the fame time that he remains unfeen and undifcovered. If, befides

the

the accomplishments of being witty and ill-natured, a man is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the moft mifchievous creatures that can enter into a civil fociety. His fatire will then chiefly fall upon thofe who ought to be the most exempt from it. Virtue, merit, and every thing that is praifeworthy, will be made the fubject of ridicule and buffoonry. It is impoffible to enumerate the evils which arife from thefe arrows that fly in the dark; and I know no other excufe that is or can be made for them, than that the wounds they give are only imaginary, and produce nothing more than a fecret fhame or forrow in the mind of the fuffering perfon. It must indeed be confeffed, that a lampoon or fatire do not carry in them rob、 bery or murder; but at the fame time, how many are there that would not rather lofe a confiderable fum of money, or even life itfelf, than be fet up as a mark of infamy and derifion! and in this cafe a man fhould confider, that an injury is not to be measured by the notions of him that gives, but of him who receives it.

Thofe who can put the best countenance upon the outrages of this nature which are offered them, are not without their fecret anguifh. I have often obferved a paffage in Socrates's behaviour at his death, in a light wherein none of the critics have confidered it. That excellent man, entertaining his friends a little before he drank the bowl of poifon, with a difcourfe on the immortality of the foul, at his entering upon it, fays, that he does not believe any the moft comic genius can cenfure him for talking upon fuch a fubject at fuch a time. This paffage, I think, evidently glances upon Ariftophanes, who writ a comedy on purpofe to ridicule the difcourfes of that divine philofopher. It has been obferved by many writers, that Socrates was fo little moved at this piece of buffoonry, that he was feveral times prefent at its being acted upon the stage, and never expreffed the leaft refentment of it. But with fubmiffion, I think the remark I have here made fhews us, that this unworthy treatment made an impreffion upon his mind, though he had been too wife to discover it.

When Julius Cæfar was lampooned by Catullus, he

invited

invited him to a fupper, and treated him with fuch a generous civility, that he made the poet his friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarine gave the fame kind treatment to the learned Quillet, who had reflected upon his eminence in a famous Latin poem. The Cardinal fent for him, and after fome kind expoftulations upon what he had written, affured him of his cfteem, and difiniffed him with a promife of the next good abbey that should fall; which he accordingly conferred upon him in a few months after. This had fo good an effect upon the author, that he dedicated the fecond edition of his book to the Cardinal, after having expunged the paffages which had given him offence.

Sextus Quintus was not of fo generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his being made Pope, the ftatue of Pafquin was one night dreffed in a very dirty fhirt, with an excufe written under it, that he was forced to wear foul linen, because his laundrefs was made a princefs. This was a reflection upon the Pope's fifter, who, before the promotion of her brother, was in thofe mean circumftances that Pafquin represented her. As this pasquinade made a great noife in Rome, the Pope offered a confiderable fun of money to any perfon that should difcover the author of it. The author relying upon his Holiness's generofity, as alfo on fome private overtures which he had received from him, made the difcovery himself; upon which the Pope gave him the reward he had promifed, but at the fame time, to difable the fatirift for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both his hands to be chopped off. Aretine is too trite an instance. Every one knows that all the kings in Europe were his tributaries. Nay, there is a letter of his extant, in which he makes his boasts that he had laid the Sophi of Persia under contribution.

Though in the various examples which I have here drawn together, thefe feveral great men behaved themfelves very differently towards the wits of the age who had reproached them, they all of them plainly thewed that they were very fenfible of their reproaches, and con1equently that they received them as very great injuries.

For

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