one day a most excellent player. I faw indeed but two things wanting to render his whole action complete, I mean the keeping his head a little lower, and hiding ⚫ his candle. ་ ་ ་ 'I OBSERVE that Mr. Powell and the undertakers had 'both the fame thought, and I think much about the fame 'time, of introducing animals on their feveral stages, though indeed with very different fuccefs. The fparrows ⚫ and chaffinches at the Hay-market, fly as yet very irregularly over the stage; and instead of perching on the trees, and performing their parts, thefe young actors either get into the galleries, or put out the candles, whereas Mr. Powell has fo well difciplined his pig, that in the firft fcene he and Punch dance a minuet together. I am informed however, that Mr. Powell refolves to excel his adverfaries in their own way; and introduce larks in his next opera of Sufanna, or Innocence betrayed, which will be exhibited next week with a pair of new elders. THE moral of Mr. Powell's drama is violated, I confefs, by Punch's national reflections on the French, and King Harry's laying his leg upon the Queen's lap in too ludicrous a manner before fo great an affembly. As to the mechanism and scenery, every thing indeed C was uniform and of a piece, and the scenes were managed very dextroufly; which calls on me to take notice, that at the Hay-market, the undertakers forgetting to change their fide-scenes, we were prefented with a profpect of the ocean in the midst of a delightful grove; and though the gentlemen on the stage had very much ⚫ contributed to the beauty of the grove, by walking up and down between the trees, I must own, I was not a < little aftonished, to fee a well dreffed young fellow, in a full-bottomed wig, appear in the midft of the fea, and without any visible concern taking fnuff. I SHALL only observe one thing farther, in which both dramas agree; which is, that by the fqueak of their voices the heroes of each are eunuchs; and as the wit in both pieces is equal, I must prefer the performance of Mr. Powell, because it is in our own language. R I am, &c. No. 1 50 No. 15. Saturday, March 17. Parva leves capiunt animos OVID. Ars am. 1. 1. v. 159. Light minds are pleased with trifles. WHEN 7HEN I was in France, I ufed to gaze with great aftonishment at the fplendid equipages and partycoloured habits of that fantastic nation.. I was one day in particular contemplating a lady, that fat in a coach adorned with gilded Cupids, and finely planted with the loves of Venus and Adonis. The coach was drawn by fix milk-white horses, and loaden behind with the fame number of powdered footmen. Juft before the lady were a couple of beautiful pages, that were ftuck among the harnefs, and, by their gay dreffes and fmiling features, looked like the elder brothers of the little boys that were carved and painted in every corner of the coach. THE lady was the unfortunate Cleanthe, who afterwards gave an occafion to a pretty melancholy novel. She had, for feveral years, received the addreffes of a gentleman, whom after a long and intimate acquaintance, fhe forfook, upon the account of this fhining equipage, which had been offered to her by one of great riches, but a crazy conftitution. The circumftances in which I faw her, were, it feems, the difguifes only of a broken heart, and a kind of pageantry to cover diftrefs; for in two months after fhe was carried to her grave with the fame pomp and magnificence; being fent thither partly by the lofs of one lover, and partly by the poffeffion of another. I HAVE often reflected with myself on this unaccountable humour in womankind, of being fmitten with every thing that is fhowy and fuperficial; and on the numberlefs evils that befal the fex, from this light, fantastical difpofition. I myself remember a young lady that was very warmly folicited by a couple of importunate rivals, who, for feveral months together, did all they could to recommend themfelves, by complacency of behaviour, and agreeablenefs of converfation. At length, when the competition was doubtful, and the lady undetermined in her choice, one very of the young lovers very luckily bethought himself of adding a fupernumerary lace to his liveries, which had fo good an efect, that he married her the week after. THE ufual converfation of ordinary women very much cherishes this natural weakness of being taken with outside and appearance. Talk of a new married couple, and you immediately hear whether they keep their coach and fix, or eat in plate: mention the name of an abfent lady, and it is ten to one but you learn fomething of her gown and petticoat. A ball is a great help to discourse, and a birthday furnishes converfation for a twelvemonth after. A furbelow of precious ftones, an hat buttoned with a diamond, a brocade waistcoat or petticoat, are standing topics. In short, they confider only the drapery of the fpecies, and never caft away a thought on those ornaments of the mind, that make perfons illuftrious in themselves, and ufeful to others. When women are thus perpetually dazzling one another's imaginations, and filling their heads with nothing but colours, it is no wonder that they are more attentive to the fuperficial parts of life, than the folid and fubftantial bleffings of it. A girl who has been trained up in this kind of converfation, is in danger of every embroidered coat that comes in her way. A pair of fringed gloves may be her ruin. In a word, lace and ribands, filver and gold galoons, with the like glittering gewgaws, are so many lures to women of weak minds or low educations, and, when artificially difplayed, are able to fetch down the moft airy coquette from the wildeft of her flights and rambles. TRUE happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noife: it arifes, in the firft place, from the enjoyment of one's felf; and in the next, from the friendfhip and converfation of a few felect companions: it loves fhade and folitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows: in fhort, it feels every thing it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witneffes and fpectators. On the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive any fatisfaction from the applaufes which fhe gives herself, but from the admiration which the raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theatres and affemblies, and has no existence but when fhe is looked upon. AURELIA, AURELIA, though a woman of great quality, delights in the privacy of a country-life, and paffes away a great part of her time in her own walks and gardens. Her hufband, who is her bofom-friend, and companion in her folitudes, has been in love with her ever fince he knew her. They both abound with good fenfe, confummate virtue, aid a mutual esteem; and are a perpetual entertainment to one another. Their family is under fo regular an œconomy, in its hours of devotion and repaft, employment and diverfion, that it looks like a little commonwealth within itfelf. They often go into company, that they may return with the greater delight to one another; and fometimes live in town, not to enjoy it fo properly as to grow weary of it, that they may renew in themselves the relish of a country-life. By this means they are happy in each other, beloved by their children, adored by their fervants, and are become the envy, or rather the delight of all that know them. How different to this is the life of Fulvia! fhe confiders her husband as her steward, and looks upon difcretion and good housewifery as little domeftic virtues, unbecoming a woman of quality. She thinks life loft in her own family, and fancies herfelf out of the world when fhe is not in the ring, the playhouse, or the drawing-room: fhe lives in a perpetual motion of body, and restleffness of thought, and is never eafy in any one place, when the thinks there is more company in another. The miffing of an opera the first night, would be more afflicting to her than the death of a child. She pities all the valuable part of her own fex, and calls every woman of a prudent modest retired life, a poor fpirited and unpolished creature. What a mortification would it be to Fulvia, if the knew that her fetting herself to view is but expofing herfelf, and that fhe grows contemptible by being confpicuous ? I CANNOT conclude my paper, without obferving that Virgil has very finely touched upon this female paffion for drefs and show, in the character of Camilla; who, though the feems to have fhaken off all the other weaknesses of her fex, is ftill defcribed as a woman in this particular. The poet tells us, that after having made a great flaughter of the enemy, fhe unfortunately caft her eye on a Trojan, who wore an embroidered tunic, a beautiful coat of mail, with a No. 16. a mantle of the finest purple. A golden bow, fays he, hung upon his fhoulder; his garment was buckled with a golden clafp, and his head covered with an helmet of the fame Shining metal. The Amazon immediately fingled out this well-dreffed warrior, being feized with a woman's longing for the pretty trappings that he was adorned with: --Totumque incauta per agmen Femines prada et fpoliorum ardebat amore. An. 11. v. 782. This heedlefs purfuit after thefe glittering trifles, the poet, by a nice concealed moral, reprefents to have been the deftruction of his female hero. C No. 16. Monday, March 19. Quod verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc fum. HOR. Ep. 1. 1. 1. V. II. What right, what true, what fit we justly call, I РОРЕ. HAVE received a letter, defiring me to be very fatirical upon the little muff that is now in faflion; another informs me of a pair of filver garters buckled below the knee, that have been lately feen at the Rainbow coffeehouse in Fleetftreet: a third fends me a heavy complaint against fringed gloves. To be brief, there is scarce an ornament of either fex which one or other of my correfpondents has not inveighed against with fome bitternefs, and recommended to my obfervation. I muft therefore, once for all, inform my readers, that it is not my intention to fink the dignity of this my paper with reflections upon red-heels or top-knots, but rather to enter into the paflions of mankind, and to correct thofe depraved fentiments that give birth to all thofe little extravagancies which appear in their outward drefs and behaviour. Foppifh and fantastic ornaments are only indications of vice, not crirainal in themselves. Extinguifh vanity in the mind, and you naturally |