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distemper and a narrow fortune, is never heard to complain. That equal spirit of his, which any man may have, that, like him, will conquer pride, vanity, and affectation, and follow nature, is not to be broken, because it has no points to contend for. To be anxious for nothing but what nature demands as necessary, if it is not the way to an estate, is the way to what men aim at by getting an estate. This temper will preserve health in the body, as well as tranquillity in the mind. Cottilus sees the world in a hurry, with the same scorn that a sober person sees a man drunk. Had he been contented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such a one have met with such a disappointment? If another had valued his mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her power. If her virtue had had a part of his passion, her levity had been his cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the same time.

Since we cannot promise ourselves constant health, let us endeavor at such a temper as may be our best support in the decay of it. Uranius has arrived at that composure of soul, and wrought himself up to such a neglect of everything with which the generality of mankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute pains can give him disturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate friends he has a secret which gives him present ease. Uranius is so thoroughly persuaded of another life, and endeavors so sincerely to secure an interest in it, that he looks upon pain but as a quickening of his pace to a home, where he shall be better provided for than in his present apartment. Instead of the melancholy views which others are apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he is mortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the time of his birth he entered into an eternal being; and the short article of death ho will not allow an interruption of life; since that moment is not of half the duration as his ordinary sleep. Thus is his being one uniform and consistent series of cheerful diversions and moderate cares, without fear or hope of futurity. Health to him is more than pleasure to another man, and sickness less affecting to him than indisposition is to others.

I must confess, if one does not regard life after this manner, none but idiots can pass it away with any tolerable patience. Take a fine lady who is of a delicate frame, and you may observe, from the hour she rises, a certain weariness of ali that passes about her. I know more than one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of such strange frightful people they meet; one is so awkward, and another so disagreeable, that it looks like a penance to breathe the same air with them. You see this is so very true, that a great part of ceremony and good breeding among the ladies turns upon their uneasiness; and I will undertake, if the how-doye-servants of our women were to make a weekly bill of sickness, as the parish-clerks do of mortality, you would not find in an account of seven days, one in thirty that was not downright sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she was, and so forth.

It is certain, that to enjoy life and health as a constant feast, we should not think pleasure necessary; but, if possible, to arrive at an equality of mind. It is as mean to be overjoyed upon occasions of good fortune, as to be dejected in circumstances of distress. Laughter in one condition, is as unmanly as weeping in another. We should not form our minds to expect transport on every occasion, but know how to make it enjoy

ment to be out of pain. Ambition, envy, vagrant desire, or impertinent mirth, will take up our minds, without we can possess ourselves in that sobriety of heart which is above all pleasures, and can be felt much better than described. But the ready way, I believe, to the right enjoyment of life is, by a prospect toward another, to have but a very mean opinion of it. A great author of our time has set this in an excellent light, when, with a philosophical pity of human life, he spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in the following manner :

"For what is this life but a circulation of little

mean actions? We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work of play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the circle returns. We spend the day in trifles, and when the night comes we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, among dreams, and broken thoughts, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by us, and we are for the time as arrant brutes as those that sleep in the stalls or in the field. Are not the capacities of man higher than these? And ought not his ambition and expectations to be greater? Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations, we are eternally happy."-T.

No. 144.] WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1711. -Noris quam elegans formarum "Spectator" siem. TER. Eun., Act iii, Sc. 5.

You shall see how nice a judge of beauty I am. BEAUTY has been the delight and torment of the world ever since it began. The philosophers have felt its influence so sensibly, that almost every one of them has left us some saying or other, which intimated that he knew too well the power of it. Ouet has told us, that a graceful person is a more powerful recommendation than the best letter that can be written in your favor. Another desires the possessor of it to consider it as a mere gift of nature, and not any perfection of his own. A third§ calls it a "short-lived tyranny;" a fourth] a "silent fraud," because it imposes upon us without the help of language; but I think Carneades spoke as much like a philosopher as any of them, though more like a lover, when he calls it "royalty without force." It is not indeed to be denied, but there is something irresistible in a beauteous form; the most severe will not pretend, that they do not feel an immediate prepossession in favor of the handsome. No one denies them the privilege of being first heard, and being regarded before others in matters of ordinary consideration. At the same time the handsome should consider that it is a possession, as it were, foreign to them. No one can give it himself, or preserve it when they have it. Yet so it is, that people can bear any quality in the world better than beauty. It is the consolation of all who are naturally too much affected with the force of it, that a little attention, if a man behave with judgment, will cure them. Handsome people usually are so fantastically pleased with themselves, that if they do not kill at first sight, as the phrase is, a second interview disarms them of all their power. But I shall

* Dr. Thomas Burnet, master of the Charter-house. Theo

ria Telluris, 4to., Amst., 1699, p. 241. +Aristotle. Plato. Socrates. Theophrastus. Rather, "A sovereignty that needs no military force;" this is the proper meaning of the original.

make this paper rather a warning-piece to give notice where the danger is, than to propose instructions how to avoid it when you have fallen u the way of it. Handsome men shall be the subject of another chapter, the women shall take up the present discourse.

Amaryllis, who has been in town but one winter, is extremely improved in the arts of good breeding, without leaving nature. She has not lost the native simplicity of her aspect, to substitute that patience of being stared at, which is the usual triumph and distinction of a town lady. In public assemblies you meet her careless eye diverting itself with the objects around her, insensible that she herself is one of the brightest in the place.

Dulcissa is quite another make; she is almost a beauty by nature, but more than one by art. If it were possible for her to let her fan or any limb about her rest, she would do some part of the execation she meditates; but though she designs her self a prey, she will not stay to be taken. No painter can give you words for the different aspects of Dulcissa in half a moment, wherever she appears so little does she accomplish what she takes so much pains for, to be gay and careless. Merab is attended with all the charms of women and accomplishments of man. It is not to be doubted but she has a great deal of wit, if she were not such a beauty; and she would have more beauty had she not so much wit. Affectation prevents her excellences from walking together. If she has a mind to speak such a thing, it must be done with such an air of her body; and if she has an inclination to look very careless, there is such a smart thing to be said at the same time, that the design of being admired destroys itself.Thus the unhappy Merab, though a wit and beauty, is allowed to be neither, because she will always be both.

Albacinda has the skill as well as the power of pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect humble. All good men should beware of the destrover. She will speak to you like your sister, until she has you sure: but is the most vexatious of tyrants when you are so. Her familiarity of behavior, her indifferent questions and gencral conversation, make the silly part of her votaries full of hopes, while the wise fly from her power. She well knows she is too beautiful and too witty to be indiffereut to any who converse with her, and therefore knows she does not lessen herself by familiarity, but gains occasions of admiration by seeming ignorance of her perfections.

with fear gives a tincture to all her behavior. It would be savage to offend her, and cruelty to use art to gain her. Others are beautiful, but, Eucratia, thou art beauty!

Omuiamante is made for deceit; she has an aspect as innocent as the famed Lucrece, but a mind as wild as the more famed Cleopatra. Her face speaks a vestal, but her heart a Messalina. Who that beheld Omniamante's negligent, unobserving air, would believe that she hid under that regardless manner the witty prostitute, the rapacious wench, the prodigal courtesan? She can, when she pleases, adorn those eyes with tears like an infant that is chid; she can cast down that pretty face in confusion, while you rage with jealousy, and storm at her perfidiousness: she can wipe her eyes, tremble and look frightened, until you fancy yourself a brute for your rage, own yourself an offender, beg pardon, and make her new presents. But I go too far in 'reporting only the dangers in beholding the beauteous, which I design for the instruction of the fair as well as their beholders; and shall end this rhapsody with mentioning what I thought was well enough said of an ancient sage to a beautiful youth, whom he saw admiring his own figure in brass. "What," said the philosopher, "could that image of yours say for itself if it could speak?”—“It might say," answered the youth, "that it is very beautiful." "And are not you ashamed," replied the cynic, "to value yourself upon that only of which a piece of brass is capable?"-T

No. 145.] THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1711. Stultitiam patiuntur opes.-HOR. 1 Ep. xviii, 29. Their folly pleads the privilege of wealth. Ir the following enormities are not amended upon the first mentioning, I desire farther notice from my correspondents.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I am obliged to you for your discourse the other day upon frivolous disputants, who with great warmth and enumeration of many circumstances and authorities, undertake to prove matters which nobody living denies. You cannot employ yourself more usefully than in adjusting the laws of disputation in coffee-houses and accidental companies, as well as in more formal debates. Among many other things which your own experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you please to take notice of wagerers. Eudosia adds to the height of her stature a no-I will not here repeat what Hudibras says of such bility of spirit which still distinguishes her above disputants, which is so true, that it is almost prothe rest of her sex. Beauty in others is lovely, in verbial; but shall only acquaint you with a set of others agrecable, in others attractive; but in Eu-young fellows of the inns of court, whose fathers dosia it is commanding. Love toward Eudosia is have provided for them so plentifully, that they a sentiment like the love of glory. The lovers of need not be very anxious to get law into their other women are softened into fondness-the ad- heads for the service of their country at the bar; mirers of Eudosia exalted into ambition. but are of those who are sent (as the phrase of parents is) to the Temple to know how to keep their own.' One of these gentlemen is very loud and captious at a coffee-house which I frequent, and being in his nature troubled with a humor of contradiction, though withal excessively ignorant, he has found a way to indulge this temper, go on in idleness and ignorance, and yet still give himself the air of a very learned and knowing man, by the strength of his pocket. The misfortune of the thing is, I have, as it happens sometimes, a greater stock of learning than of money. The gentleman I am speaking of takes advantage of the narrowness of my circumstances

Eucratia presents herself to the imagination with a more kindly pleasure, and, as she is woman, her praise is wholly feminine. If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valor, as being essential to the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex; with some subordination to it, but such an inferiority that makes her still more lovely. Eucratia is that creature-she is all over woman, kindness is all her art, and beauty all her arms. Her look, her voice, her gesture, and whole behavior, is truly feminine. A goodness mixed

*Antisthenes, the founder of the sect of Cynic philosophers,

in such a manner, that he has read all that I can
pretend to, and runs me down with such a positive
air, and with such powerful arguments, that from
a very learned person I am thought a mere pre-
tender. Not long ago I was relating that I had
read such a passage in Tacitus: up starts my
young gentleman in a full company, and pulling
out his purse offered to lay me ten guineas, to be
staked immediately in that gentleman's hands
(pointing to one smoking at another table), that I
was utterly mistaken. I was dumb for want of
ten guineas; he went on unmercifully to triumph
over my ignorance how to take him up, and told
the whole room he had read Tacitus twenty times
over, and such a remarkable incident as that could
not escape him. He has at this time three con-
siderable wagers depending between him and some
of his companions who are rich enough to hold
an argument with him. He has five guineas upon
questions in geography-two that the Isle of
Wi
Vight is a peninsula, and three guineas to one
that the world is round. We have a gentleman
comes to our coffee-house, who deals mightily in
antique scandal; my disputant has laid him twenty
pieces upon a point of history, to wit, that Cæsar
never lay with Cato's sister, as is scandalously re-
ported by some people.

marry one of us very suddenly, we have al agreed, the next time he pretends to be merry, te affront him, and use him like a clown as he is. In the name of the sisterhood I take my leave of you, and am as they all are,

"Your constant reader, and well-wisher."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I and several others of your female readers have conformed ourselves to your rules, even to our very dress. There is not one of us but has reduced our outward petticoat to its ancient sizeable circumference, though indeed we retain still a quilted one underneath; which makes us not altogether unconformable to the fashion; but it is on condition Mr. Spectator extends not his censure so far. But we find you men secretly ap prove our practice, by imitating our pyramídical form. The skirt of your fashionable coats forms as large a circumference as our petticoats; as these are set out with whalebone, so are those with wire, to increase and sustain a bunch of fold that hangs down on each side; and the hat, I perceive, is decreased in just proportion to our head-dresses. We make a regular figure, but I defy your mathematics to give name to the form you appear in. Your architecture is mere Gothic, and betrays a worse genius than ours; therefore if you are partial to your own sex, I shall be less than I am "Your humble servant."-T.

now

No. 146.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1711. Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit.

TULL

"There are several of this sort of fellows in town, who wager themselves into statesmen, historians, geographers, mathematicians, and every other art, when the persons with whom they talk have not wealth equal to their learning. I beg of you to prevent in these youngsters this compendious way of wisdom, which costs other people so much time and pains; and you will oblige "Your humble servant." "Coffee-house, near the Temple." No man was ever great without some degree of inspiration. WE know the highest pleasure our minds are "MR SPECTATOR, Aug. 12, 1711. capable of enjoying with composure, when we "Here's a young gentleman that sings opera- read sublime thoughts conmunicated to us by men tunes or whistles in a full house. Pray let him of great genius and eloquence: such is the enterknow that he has no right to act here as if he were tainment we meet with in the philosophic parts in an empty room. Be pleased to divide the of Cicero's writings. Truth and good sense have spaces of a public room and certify whistlers, there so charming a dress, that they could hardly singers, and common orators, that are heard farther be more agreeably represented with the addition than their portion of the room, comes to, that the of poetical fiction, and the power of numbers. Jaw is open and that there is an equity which will This ancient author, and a modern one, have fallen relieve us from such as interrupt us in our lawful into my hands within these few days; and the imdiscourse, as much as against such who stop us pressions they have left upon me have at the on the road. I take these persons, Mr. Spectator, present quite spoiled me for a merry fellow. The to be such trespassers as the officer in your stage-modern is that admirable writer, the author of coach, and am of the same sentiment with counselor The Theory of Earth. The subjects with which Ephraim. It is true the young man is rich, and, I have lately been entertained in them both bear as the vulgar say, needs not care for anybody; but a near affinity; they are upon inquiries into heresure that is no authority for him to go whistle where after, and the thoughts of the latter seem to me to he pleases. be raised above those of the former, in proportion to his advantages of scripture and revelation. If I had a mind to it, I could not at present talk of anything else; therefore I shall translate a passage in the one, and transcribe a paragraph out of the other, for the speculation of this day. tells us, that Plato reports Socrates, upon receiving his sentence, to have spoken to his judges in the following manner:

"I am, Sir, your most humble servant. "P. S. I have chambers in the Temple, and here are students that learn upou the hautboy; pray desire the benchers, that all lawyers who are proficients in wind-music may lodge to the Thames." "MR. SPECTATOR,

Cicero

"We are a company of young women who pass our time very much together, and obliged by the "I have great hopes, O my judges, that it is mercenary humor of the men to be as mercenarily infinitely to my advantage that I am sent to death, inclined as they are. There visits among us an for it must of necessity be, that one of these two old bachelor whom each of us has a mind to. things must be the consequence. Death must The fellow is rich, and knows he may have any take away all these senses, or convey me to anof us, therefore is particular to none, but exces- other life. If all sense is to be taken away, aud sively ill-bred. His pleasantry consists in romp-death is no more than that profound sleep without ing; he snatches kisses by surprise, puts his hands in our necks, tears our fans, robs us of our ribbons, forces letters out of our hands, looks into any of our papers, and a thousand other rudenesses. Now what I will desire of you is, to atquaint him, by printing this, that if he does not

dreams, in which we are sometimes buried, oh, heavens! how desirable it is to die! How many days do we know in life preferable to such a state? But if it be true that death is but a passage to

*Tusculan. Quæstion. lib. 1.

places which they who ive before us do now in-
habit, how much still happier is it to go from
those who call themselves judges to appear before
those that really are such; before Minos, Rhada-
manthus, acus, and Triptolemus, and to meet
men who have lived with justice and truth! Is
this, do you think, no happy journey? Do you
think it nothing to speak with Orpheus, Musaus,
Homer, and Hesiod? I would, indeed, suffer
many deaths to enjoy these things. With what
particular delight should I talk to Palamedes,
Ajax, and others, who like me have suffered by
the iniquity of their judges. I should examine
the wisdom of that great prince who carried such
mighty forces against Troy; and argue with Ulys-
ses and Sisyphus upon difficult points, as I have
in conversation here, without being in danger of
being condemned. But let not those among you
who have pronounced ine an innocent man be
afraid of death. No harm can arrive at a good
man, whether dead or living; his affairs are al-
ways under the direction of the gods; nor will I
believe the fate which is allotted to me myself
this day to have arrived by chance; nor have I
aught to say either against my judges or accusers,
but that they thought they did me an injury.
But I detain you too long; it is time that I retire
to death, and you to your affairs of life; which
of us has the better is known to the gods, but to
no mortal man."

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domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundatiouns deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous. She glorified herself and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow.' But her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in everlasting oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands; but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is nowhere found.' Here stood the Alps, the load of the earth that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the. clouds; there was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia; and youder, toward the north, stood the Riphaan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropt away as the snow upon their heads. Great and marvelous are thy works, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! hallelujah.'"*

T.

No. 147.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1711.
Pronunciato est vocis, et vultus est gestus moderatio cum
Good delivery is a graceful management of the voice, coun

tenance, and gesture.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

The divine Socrates is here represented in a fig-venustate.-TULL. ure worthy his great wisdom and philosophy, worthy the greatest mere man that ever breathed. But the modern discourse is written upon a subject no less than the dissolution of nature itself. O how glorious is the old age of that great man, who has spent his time in such contemplations as has made this being, what only it should be, an education for heaven! He has, according to the lights of reason and revelation which seemed to him clearest, traced the steps of Omnipotence. He has, with a celestial ambition, as far as it is consistent with humility and devotion, examined the ways of Providence from the creation to the dissolution of the visible world. How pleasing must have been the speculation, to observe Nature and Providence move together, the physical and moral world march the same pace: to observe paradise and eternal spring the seat of innocence, troubled seasons and angry skies the portion of wickedness and vice! When this admirable author has reviewed all that is past, or is to come, which relates to the habitable world, and run through the whole fate of it, how could a guardian angel, that had attended it through all its courses or changes, speak more emphatically at the end of his charge, than does our author when he makes, as it were, a funeral oration over this globe, looking to the point where it once stood?

"Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion on the vanity and transient glory of this habitable world. How, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labors of men are reduced to nothing. All that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or van ished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction, do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose

"THE well reading of the Common-prayer is of so great importance, and so much neglected, that I take the liberty to offer to your consideration some particulars on that subject. And what more worthy your observation than this? A thing so public, and of so high consequence. It is indeed wonderful, that the frequent exercise of it should not make the performers of that duty more expert in it. This inability, as I conceive, proceeds from the little care that is taken of their reading while boys, and at school, where, when they have got into Latin, they are looked upon as above Euglish, the reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very little purpose, without any due observations made to them of the proper accent and manner of reading; by this means they have acquired such ill habits as will not easily be removed. The only way that I know of to remedy this, is to propose some person of great ability that way as a pattern for them; example being more effectual to convince the learned, as well as instruct the ignorant.

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You must know, Sir, I have been a constant frequenter of the service of the Church of England for above these four years last past, and until Sunday was sevennight never discovered, to so great a degree, the excellency of the CommonPrayer. When, being at St. James' Garlick Hillt church, I heard the service read so distinctly, so emphatically, and so fervently, that it was next to an impossibility to be inattentive. My eyes and my thoughts could not wander as usual, but were confined to my prayers. I then considered I addressed myself to the Almighty, and not to a beautiful face. And when I reflected on my former performances of that duty, I found I had

Burnet's Theory of the Earth, 1684, fol., book III, chap. 12, p. 110, 111.

Or Garlick-hithe. The rector of this parish at that time whose excellent manner of performing the service was long was Mr. Philip Stubbs, afterward archdeacon of St. Albans, remembered by the parishioners.

influence would the service of our church. containing the best prayers that ever were composed, and that in terms most affecting, most humble, and most expressive of our wants, and dependence on the object of our worship, disposed in most proper order, and void of all confusion; what influence, I say, would these prayers have, were they delivered with a due emphasis and ap posite rising and variation of voice, the sentence concluded with a gentle cader ce, and, in a word, with such an accent and turn of speech as is peculiar to prayer?

run it over as a matter of form, in comparison to the manner in which I then discharged it. My mind was really affected, and fervent wishes accompanied my words. The Confession was read with such resigned humility, the Absolution with such a comfortable authority, the Thanksgivings with such a religious joy, as made me feel those affections of the mind in a manner I never did before. To remedy therefore the grievance above complained of, I humbly propose, that this excellent reader, upon the next and every annual assembly of the clergy of Sion-college, and all other conventions, should read prayers before "As the matter of worship is now managed, in them. For then those that are afraid of stretching dissenting congregations, you find insignificant their mouths, and spoiling their soft voices, will words and phrases raised by a lively vehemence; learn to read with clearness, loudness and strength. in our own churches, the most exalted sense de Others that affect a rakish, negligent air, by fold-preciated, by a dispassionate indolence. I remem ing their arms, and lolling on their books, will be ber to have heard Dr. Se* say in his pulpit, of taught a decent behavior, and comely erection of the Common-Prayer, that, at least, it was as perbody. Those that read so fast as if impatient of fect as anything of human institution. If the their work, may learn to speak deliberately. gentlemen who err in this kind would please to There is another sort of persons, whom I call recollect the many pleasantries they have read Pindaric readers, at being confined to no set mea- upon those who recite good things with an ill sure these pronounce five or six words with great grace, they would go on to think, that what in deliberation, and the five or six subsequent ones that case is only ridiculous, in themselves is imwith as great celerity; the first part of a sentence pious. But leaving this to their own reflections, I with a very exalted voice, and the latter part with shall conclude this trouble with what Cæsar said a submissive one: sometimes again, with one sort upon the irregularity of tone in one who read beof a tone, and immediately after with a very dif- fore him, 'Do you read or sing? If you sing, ferent one. These gentlemen will learn of my you sing very ifl.'t admired reader an evenness of voice and delivery; "Your most humble servant." and all who are innocent of these affectations, but read with such an indifferency as if they did not understand the language, may then be informed of the art of reading movingly and fervently, how to place the emphasis and give the proper accent to each word, and how to vary the voice according to the nature of the sentence. There is certainly a very great difference between the reading a prayer and a gazette, which I beg of you to inform a set of readers, who affect, forsooth, a certain gentleman-like familiarity of tone, and mend the language as they go on, crying, instead of 'pardoneth and absolveth,' pardons and absolves. These are often pretty classical scholars, and would think it an unpardonable sin to read Virgil or Martial with so little taste as they do divine service.

"This indifference seems to me to arise from the endeavor of avoiding the imputation of cant, and the false notion of it. It will be proper, therefore, to trace the origin and signification of this word. Cant' is by some people, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect, that it is said he was understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's time, it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all sudden exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and in fine all praying and preaching, like the unlearned of the Presbyterians. But I hope a proper elevation of voice, a due emphasis and accent, are not to come within this description. So that our readers may still be as unlike the Presbyterians as they please. The dissenters (I mean such as I have heard) do indeed elevate their voices, but it is with sudden jumps from the lower to the higher part of them; and that with so little sense or skill, that their elevation and cadence is bawling and muttering. They make use of an emphasis, but so improperly, that it is often placed on some very insignificant particle, as upon if' or 'and.' Now if these improprieties have so great an effect on the people as we see they have, how great an

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T.

No. 148.] MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1711.
-Exempta juvat spinis e pluribus una.
HOR. 2 Ep. ii, 212

Better one thorn pluck'd out, than all remain.

My correspondents assure me, that the enormities which they lately complained of, and I pub lished an account of, are so far from being amend ed, that new evils arise every day to interrupt their conversation, in contempt of my reproofs. My friend who writes from the coffee-house near the Temple, informs me that the gentleman who constantly sings a voluntary in spite of the whole company, was more musical than ordinary after reading my paper; and has not been contented with that, but has danced up to the glass in the middle of the room, and practiced minuet steps to his own humming. The incorrigible creature has gone still farther, and in the open coffee-house, with one hand extended as leading a lady in it, he has danced both French and country-dances, and admonished his supposed partner by smiles and nods to hold up her head and fall back, according to the respective facings and evolutions of the dance. Before this gentleman began this his exercise, he was pleased to clear his throat by coughing and spitting a full half hour; and as soon as he struck up, he appealed to an attorney's clerk in the room, whether he hit as he ought, "Since you from death have saved me?" and then asked the young fellow (pointing to a chancerybill under his arm), whether that was an opera score he carried or not ?-without staying for an answer, he fell into the exercise above-mentioned, and practiced his airs to the full house who were turned upon him, without the least shame or repentance for his former transgressions.

I am to the last degree at a loss what to do with this young fellow, except I declare him an outlaw, and pronounce it penal for any one to speak

*Probably Dr. Smalridge.

† Si legis, cantas: si cantas, male cantas.

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