° This paper my reader will find was intended for an anfiver to a multitude of correfpondents; but I hope he will pardon me if I fingle out one of them in particular, who has made me fo very humble a request, that I cannot forbear complying with it. SIR, To the SPECTATOR. March 15, 1710-11. AM at prefent fo unfortunate, as to have nothing to I beg of you that you will be pleased to put me into fome fmall poft under you. I observe that have you appointed your printer and publisher to receive letters and advertisements for the city of London; and shall think myfelf very much honoured by you, if you will appoint me to take in letters and advertisements for the city of Westminster and the dutchy of Lancaster. Though I cannot promife to fill fuch an employment with fufficient abilities, I will endeavour to make up with industry and fidelity what I want in parts and genius. I am, Sir, INCE our perfons are not of our own making, comely, it is, methinks, an honeft and laudable fortitude to dare to be ugly; at leaft to keep ourselves from being abashed with a confcioufnefs of inperfections which we cannot cannot help, and in which there is no guilt. I would not defend an haggard beau for paffing away much time at a glafs, and giving foftneffes and languishing graces to deformity; all I intend is, that we ought to be contented with our countenance and fhape, fo far, as never to give ourselves an uneafy reflection on that fubject. It is to the ordinary people, who are not accustomed to make very proper remarks on any occafion, matter of great jeft, if a man enters with a prominent pair of fhoulders into an affembly, or is diftinguished by an expanfion of mouth, or obliquity of afpect. It is happy for a man, that has any of thefe oddneffes about him, if he can be as merry upon himself, as others are apt to be upon that occafion; when he can poffefs himfelf with fuch a chearfulness, women and children, who are at first frighted at him, will afterwards be as much pleafed with him. As it is barbarous in others to railly him for natural defects, it is extremly agreeable when he can jeft upon himfelf for them. Madam Maintenon's first husband was an hero in this kind, and has drawn many pleasantries from the irregu larity of his fhape, which he defcribes as very much refembling the letter Z. He diverts himfelf likewife, by reprefenting to his reader the make of an engine. and pully, with which he used to take off his hat. When there happens to be any thing ridiculous in a vifage, and the owner of it thinks it an afpect of dignity, he must be of very great quality to be exempt from raillery; the best expedient therefore is to be pleafant upon himfelf. Prince Harry and Falftaff, in Shakespear, have carried the ridicule upon fat and lean as far as it will go. Falstaff is humoroufly call'd Woolfack, Bedprefler, and Hill of flesh; Harry, a Starveling, an Elves-fkin, a Sheath, a Bow-cafe, and a Tuck. There is, in feveral incidenta of the converfation between them, the jeft ftill kept up upon the perfon. Great tendernefs and fenfibility in this point is one of the greatest weakneffes of felf-love. For my own I part, am a little unhappy in the mold of my face, which is not quite fo long as it is broad: whether this might not partly arife from my opening my mouth much feldomer than other people, and by confequence not fo much lengthening the fibres of my vifage, I am VOL. I D not not at leifure to determine. However it be, I have been often put out of countenance by the fhortness of my face, and was formerly at great pains in concealing it by wearing a perriwig with an high foretop, and letting my beard grow. But now I have thoroughly got over this delicacy, and could be contented with a much fhorter, provided it might qualify me for a member of the Merry Club, which the following letter gives me an account of. I have received it from Oxford; and as it aboundswith the fpirit of mirth and good-humour which is natural to that place, I fhall fet it down word for word as it came to me. Moft profound Sir, HAVING been very well entertained in the last your Speculations that I have yet feen, by your fpecimen upon Clubs, which I therefore hope you will continue, I fhall take the liberty to furnish you with a brief account of fuch a one as perhaps you have not feen in all your travels, unless it was your fortune to touch upon fome of the woody parts. of the African continent, in your voyage to or from Grand Cairo. There have arofe in this University (long fince you left us without faying any thing) feveral of thefe inferior hebdomadal focieties, as the Punning Club, the Witty Club, and, amongst the reft, the Handfome Club; as a burlefque upon which, a ⚫ certain merry species, that seem to have come into the world in mafquerade, for fome years laft paft have affo⚫ciated themselves together, and affumed the name of the Ugly Club. This ill-favoured fraternity confifts of a Prefident and twelve Fellows; the choice of which is not confined by patent to any particular foundation, (as St. John's men would have the world believe, and have therefore erected a feparate fociety within themfelves) but liberty is left to elect from any fchool in Great-Britain, provided the candidates be within the rules of the Club, as fet forth in a table, intituled, The Act of Deformity. A claufe or two of which I fhall tranfinit to you. I. That no perfon whatsoever fhall be admitted. without a visible queerity in his afpect, or peculiar 'caft of countenance; of which the Prefident and Of ficers for the time being are to determine, and the Prefident to have the cafting voice. II. That a fingular regard be had, upon examination, to the gibbofity of the gentlemen that offer them felves as founders kinfmen; or to the obliquity of their figure, in what fort foever. III. That if the quantity of any man's nose be emi. 'nently mifcalculated, whether as to length or breadth, he fhall have a juft pretence to be elected. Laftly, That if there fhall be two or more competitors for the fame vacancy, cæteris paribus, he that has the thickeft skin to have the preference. Every fresh member, upon his first night, is to entertain the company with a difh of cod-fish, and a fpeech in praife of fop; whofe portraiture they have in full proportion, or rather difproportion, over the chimney; and their defign is, as foon as their funds are fufficient, to purchase the heads of Therfites, Duns Scotus, Scaron, Hudibras, and the old Gentleman in Oldham, with all the celebrated ill faces of antiquity, " as furniture for the Club-room. As they have always been profeffed admirers of the other fex, fo they unanimoufly declare that they will give all poffible encouragement to fuch as will take the benefit of the ftatute, though none yet have ap6 peared to do it. The worthy Prefident, who is their most devoted champion, has lately fhewn me two copies of verfes compofed by a gentleman of this fociety; the first, a congratulatory ode infcribed to Mrs. Touchwood, uponthe lofs of her two fore-teeth; the other, a panegyric upon Mrs. Andiron's left fhoulder. Mrs. Vizard, he fays, fince the fall-pox, is grown tolerably ugly, and a top toaft in the Club; but I never heard him fo lavish of his fine things, as upon old Nell Trot, who, conftantly officiates at their table; her he even adores and extols as the very counter-part of mother Shipton;, in fhort, Nell, fays he, is one of the extraordinary works of nature; but as for complexion, shape, and features, fo valued by others, they are all mere outfide and fymmetry, which is his averfion. Give me leave to D 2 add, add, that the Prefident is a facetious pleafant gentleman, and never more fo, than when he has got (as he calls 'em) his dear Mummers about him; and he " often protests it does him good to meet a fellow with a right genuine grimace in his air (which is fo agreeable in the generality of the French nation); and, as an inftance of his fincerity in this particular, he gave me a fight of a lift in his pocket-book of all of this clafs, who for these five years have fallen under his obfervation, with himself at the head of 'em, and in the rear (as one of a promifing and improving afpect), Sir, Oxford, March 12, 1710. R Your obliged and humble fervant, ALEXANDER CARBUNCLE." N° 18 I Wednesday, March 21. Equitis quoque jam migravit ab aure voluptas Omnis ad incertos oculos, & gaudia vana. HOR. Ep. ii. v. 187. But now our nobles too are fops and vain, CREECH. T is my defign in this paper to deliver down to pofterity a faithful account of the Italian opera, and of the grandual progrefs which it has made upon the is no but our great grand❤ English ftage; for therious to know the reafon why children will be very their forefathers used to fit together like an audience of foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue which they did not understand. Arfinoe was the firft opera that gave us a taste of Italian mufic. The great fuccefs this opera met with produced fome attempts of forming pieces upon Italian plans, |