flashes of lightning, and makes all its humours sparkle with fire, as Virgil finely describes it-1

-Ardentis ab ore

Scintillæ absistunt: oculis micat acribus ignis.

'As for the various turns of the eyesight, such as the voluntary or involuntary, the half or the whole leer, I shall not enter into a very particular account of them; but let me observe, that oblique vision, when natural, was anciently the mark of bewitchery and magical fascination, and to this day 'tis a malignant ill look; but when 'tis forced and affected it carries a wanton design, and in playhouses and other public places this ocular intimation is often an assignation for bad practices. But this irregularity in vision, together with such enormities as tipping the wink, the circumspective roll, the side-peep through a thin hood or fan, must be put in the class of heteroptics, as all wrong notions of religion are ranked under the general name of heterodox. All the pernicious applications of sight are more immediately under the direction of a Spectator; and I hope you will arm your readers against the mischiefs which are daily done by killing eyes, in which you will highly oblige your wounded unknown friend,

3

T. B.'2

'Mr. SPECTATOR, 'You professed in several papers your particular endeavours, in the province of Spectator, to correct the offences committed by starers, who disturb whole assemblies, without any regard to time,

1 En. xii. 101. 2 This letter is said to be by a Mr. Golding. 3 Nos. 20, 46, 53. Cf. Tatler, Nos. 22, 145, 262.

393 place, or modesty. You complained also, that a starer is not usually a person to be convinced by the reason of the thing; nor so easily rebuked, as to amend by admonitions. I thought therefore fit to acquaint you with a convenient mechanical way, which may easily prevent or correct staring, by an optical contrivance of new perspective-glasses, short and commodious like opera-glasses, fit for shortsighted people as well as others; these glasses making the objects appear, either as they are seen by the naked eye, or more distinct, though somewhat less than life, or bigger and nearer. A person may by the help of this invention take a view of another, without the impertinence of staring; at the same time it shall not be possible to know whom or what he is looking at. One may look towards his right or left hand, when he is supposed to look forwards. This is set forth at large in the printed proposals for the sale of these glasses, to be had at Mr. Dillon's in Long Acre, next door to the White Hart. Now, sir, as your Spectator has occasioned the publishing of this invention, for the benefit of modest spectators, the inventor desires your admonitions concerning the decent use of it, and hopes by your recommendation that for the future beauty may be beheld, without the torture and confusion which it suffers from the insolence of starers. By this means you will relieve the innocent from an insult which there is no law to punish, though it is a greater offence than many which are within cognisance of justice. I am,

HERE is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner, and frights a country squire, than the cries of London.' My good friend Sir Roger often declares, that he cannot get them out of his head, or go to sleep for them the first week that he is in town. On the contrary, Will Honeycomb calls them the ramage de la ville, and prefers them to the sounds of larks and nightingales, with all the music of the fields and woods. I have lately received a letter from some very odd fellow upon this subject, which I shall leave with my reader without saying anything further of it.

'SIR,

I AM a man out of all business, and would willingly turn my head to anything for an honest livelihood. I have invented several projects for raising many millions of money without burthen

1 The state of the streets under Queen Anne is described in Lauron's Habits and Cries of the City of London,' 1709. In The Funeral' (Act iv. sc. 3) Steele makes Trim say to some ragged soldiers: There's a thousand things you might do to help one about this town, as to cry, "Puff, puff pies! "_"Have you any knives or scissors to grind?" or late in an evening, "Whip from Grub Street, strange and bloody news from Flanders". "Votes from the House of Commons "Buns, rare buns". “Old silver lace, cloaks, suits, or coats"—" Old shoes, boots, or hats." Other passages from Tom Brown, &c., will be found in Ashton's Social Life under Queen Anne,' ii. 152 seq.

ing the subject, but I cannot get the Parliament to listen to me, who look upon me, forsooth, as a projector; so that despairing to enrich either myself or my country by this public-spiritedness, I would make some proposals to you relating to a design which I have very much at heart, and which may procure me a handsome subsistence, if you will be pleased to recommend it to the cities of London and Westminster.

'The post I would aim at is to be comptrollergeneral of the London cries, which are at present under no manner of rules or discipline. I think I am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great insight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent skill in music.

'The cries of London may be divided into vocal and instrumental. As for the latter, they are at present under a very great disorder. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street for an hour together, with the twanking of a brass kettle or a frying-pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds, as much as the breaking in of a thief. The sow-gelder's horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the liberties. I would therefore propose, that no instrument of this nature should be made use of, which I have not tuned and licensed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her Majesty's liege subjects.

Vocal cries are of much larger extent, and indeed so full of incongruities and barbarisms, that we appear a distracted city to foreigners, who do not 1 'A crack and a projector' (folio).

comprehend the meaning of such enormous outcries. Milk is generally sold in a note above Elah, and in sounds so exceeding shrill, that it often sets our teeth on edge. The chimney-sweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he sometimes utters himself in the deepest bass, and sometimes in the sharpest treble; sometimes in the highest, and sometimes in the lowest note of the gamut. The same observation might be made on the retailers of small-coal, not to mention broken glasses or brick-dust. In these, therefore, and the like cases, it should be my care to sweeten and mellow the voices of these itinerant tradesmen, before they make their appearance in our streets; as also to accommodate their cries to their respective wares; and to take care in particular that those may not make the most noise who have the least to sell, which is very observable in the venders of card-matches, to whom I cannot but apply that old proverb of "Much cry but little wool."

'Some of these last-mentioned musicians are so very loud in the sale of these trifling manufactures that an honest splenetic gentleman of my acquaintance bargained with one of them never to come into the street where he lived: but what was the effect of this contract? Why, the whole tribe of cardmatch makers which frequent that quarter passed by his door the very next day in hopes of being bought off after the same manner.

'It is another great imperfection in our London cries that there is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news should indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should not, however, be cried with the same precipitation as 'Fire': yet this