N° 34.

Monday, April 9.

Cognatis maculis fimilis fera

parcit

Juv. Sat. xv. 159.

From spotted skins the leopard does refrain. TATE.

THE club of which I am a member, is very luckily

compofed of fuch perfons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most confpicuous claffes of mankind: by this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know every thing that paffes in the different quarters and divifions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. My readers too have the fatisfaction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their reprefentative in this club, and that there is always fomebody prefent who will take care of their respective interefts, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges.

I laft night fat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with feveral remarks which they and others had made upon these my fpeculations, as also with the various success which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. WILL HONEYCOMB told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were fome ladies (but for your comfort, fays WILL, they are not those of the most wit) that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-ihow; that fome of them were likewife very much furprised, that I should think fuch ferious points as the drefs and equipage of perfons of quality, proper fubjects for raillery.

He was going on, when fir ANDREW FREEPORT took him up fhort, and told him, that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their wives and daughters were the better for them;

and farther added, that the whole city thought themfelves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to fcourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues and cuckoldoms. In fhort, fays Sir ANDREW, if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper muft needs be of general use.

Upon this my friend the TEMPLAR told fir ANDREW, that he wondered to hear a man of his fense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for fatire; and that the wits of king Charles's time jested upon nothing elfe during his whole reign. He then fhewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the beft writers of every age, that the follies of the ftage and court had never been accounted too facred for ridicule, how great foever the perfons might be that patronized them. But after all, fays he, I think your raillery has made too great an excurfion, in attacking feveral perfons of the inns of court; and I do not believe you can fhew me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular.

My good friend fir ROGER DE COVERLEY, who had faid nothing all this while, began his speech with a pish! and told us, that he wondered to fee fo many men of fense so very serious upon fooleries. Let our good friend, fays he, attack every one that deferves it: I would only advise you, Mr. SPECTATOR, applying himself to me, to take care how you meddle with country fquires: they are the ornaments of the English nation good heads and found bodies! and let me tell you, fome of them take it ill of you, that you mention foxhunters with fo little respect.

; men of

Captain SENTRY spoke very sparingly on this occafion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act difcreetly in that point.

By this time I found every fubject of my fpeculations was taken away from me, by one or other of the club; and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took diflike to his grey

hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an averfion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked.

While I was thus mufing with myself, my worthy friend the CLERGYMAN, who, very luckily for me, was at the club that night, undertook my caufe. He told us, that he wondered any order of perfons fhould think themselves too confiderable to be advised: that it was not quality, but innocence, which exempted men from reproof that vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and confpicuous ftations of life. He further added, that my paper would only ferve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed thofe who are already depreffed, and in fome measure turned into ridicule, by the meanness of their conditions and circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the public, by reprehending thofe vices which are too trivial for the chaftifement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He then advised me to profecute my undertaking with chearfulness, and affured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I fhould be approved by all thofe whofe praifes do honour to the perfons on whom they are beftowed.

The whole club pays a particular deference to the difcourfe of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he fays, as much by the candid ingenuous manner with which he delivers himfelf, as by the ftrength of argument and force of reason which he makes ufe of. WILL HONEYCOMB immediately agreed, that what he had faid was right; and that for his part, he would not insist upon the quarter which he had demanded for the ladies. Sir ANDREW gave up the city with the fame frankness. The TEMPLAR would not ftand out, and was followed by fir ROGER and the CAPTAIN; who all agreed that I fhould be at liberty to carry the war into what quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with criminals in a body, and to affault the vice without hurting the perfon.

This debate, which was held for the good of mankind, put me in mind of that which the Roman trium

virate were formerly engaged in, for their deftruction. Every man at firft ftood hard for his friend, till they found that by this means they should spoil their proscription and at length, making a facrifice of all their acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution.

Having thus taken my refolutions to march on boldly in the cause of virtue and good sense, and to annoy their adverfaries in whatever degree or rank of men they may be found; I fhall be deaf for the future to all the remonftrances that fhall be made to me on this account. If Punch grows extravagant, I fhall reprimand him very freely if the ftage becomes a nursery of folly and impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In fhort, if I meet with any thing in city, court, or country, that shocks modesty or good manners, I fhall ufe my utmost endeavours to make an example of it. I muft however, intreat every particular perfon, who does me the honour to be a reader of this paper, never to think himself, or any one of his friends or enemies, aimed at in what is faid: for I promise him, never to draw a faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand people; or to publifh a fingle paper, that is not written in the spirit of benevolence, and with a love to mankind.

C.

N° 35.

Tuesday, April 10.

Rifu inepto res ineptior nulla eft.

Nothing fo foolish as the laugh of fools..

MART.

AMONG all kinds of writing, there is none in

which authors are more apt to mifcarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel. It is not an imagination that teeins with monsters, an head that is filled with extravagant conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the world with diverfions of this nature; and yet if we look into

the productions of feveral writers, who set up for men of humour, what wild irregular fancies, what unnatural diftortions of thought, do we meet with? if they speak nonsense, they believe they are talking humour; and when they have drawn together a scheme of abfurd inconfiftent ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. These poor gentlemen endeavour to gain themselves the reputation of wits and humourists, by fuch monftrous conceits as almost qualify them for Bedlam; not confidering that humour fhould always lie under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the niceft judgment, by fo much more as it indulges itself in the moft boundlefs freedoms. There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in this fort of compofitions, as well as in all other; and a certain regularity of thought which must discover the writer to be a man of fenfe, at the fame time that he appears altogether given up to caprice. For my part, when I read the delirious mirth of an unfkilful author, I cannot be fo barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man, than to laugh at any thing he writes.

The deceased Mr. Shadwell, who had himself a great deal of the talent which I am treating of, reprefents an empty rake, in one of his plays, as very much surprised to hear one say that breaking of windows was not humour; and I queftion not but feveral English readers will be as much startled to hear me affirm, that many of those raving incoherent pieces, which are often fpread among us, under odd chimerical titles, are rather the offsprings of a diftempered brain, than works of humour.

It is indeed much easier to defcribe what is not humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwife, than as Cowley has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory, and by fuppofing humour to be a perfon, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. TRUTH was the founder of the family, and the father of GOOD SENSE. GOOD SENSE was the father of WIT, who married a lady of a collateral line called MIRTH, by whom he had iffue HUMOUR. HUMOUR therefore