of us an harsh word, and we think it is the greatest punishment in the world when he will not speak to any of us. My brother and I are both together inditing this letter: he is a year older than I am, but is now ready to break his heart that the doctor has not taken any notice of him these three days. If you please to print this he will see it, and, we hope, taking it for my brother's earnest desire to be restored to his favour, he will again smile upon him. Your most obedient Servant, T. S.' 'Mr. SPECTATOR, 'YOU have represented several sorts of impertinents singly, I wish you would now proceed, and describe some of them in sets. It often happens in public assemblies that a party who came thither together, or whose impertinences are of an equal pitch, act in concert, and are so full of themselves as to give disturbance to all that are about them. Sometimes you have a set of whisperers who lay their heads together in order to sacrifice everybody within their observation; sometimes a set of laughers that keep up an insipid mirth in their own corner, and by their noise and gestures show they have no respect for the rest of the company. You frequently meet with these sets at the opera, the play, the water-works,' and other public meetings, where 1 Winstanley's Water-Theatre was exhibited by his wife at the lower end of Piccadilly, towards Hyde Park. According to advertisements in the Spectator, the house was known by the windmill on the top of it.' The theatre was shown every evening between four and five, and the prices were from 6d. up to 2s. 6d. or 4s., according to the season. An advertisement in the Daily Courant their whole business is to draw off the attention of the spectators from the entertainment, and to fix it upon themselves; and it is to be observed that the impertinence is ever loudest when the set happens to be made up of three or four females who have got what you call a woman's man' among them. 'I am at a loss to know from whom people of fortune should learn this behaviour, unless it be from the footmen who keep their places at a new play, and are often seen passing away their time in sets at "all-fours "" in the face of a full house, and with a perfect disregard to people of quality sitting on each side of them. 'For preserving therefore the decency of public assemblies, methinks it would be but reasonable that those who disturb others should pay at least a double price for their places; or rather women of birth and distinction should be informed that a levity of behaviour in the eyes of people of understanding degrades them below their meanest atten for Jan. 20, 1713, speaks of great additions, to the expense of 300 tons of water, and fire mingling with the water, and two flying boys, and a flaming torch with water flowing out of the burning flame.' Winstanley's house at Littlebury, Essex, where there were various ingenious machines,' was also shown for the benefit of his widow. Henry Winstanley, son of the Hamlet Winstanley who built Eddystone Lighthouse, and was killed there in the storm of 1703, was an engraver, and clerk of the works at Audley End in 1694, and at Newmarket in 1700. He is supposed to have learnt in Italy the devices which he employed in his theatre. (Tatler, 1786, ii. 473, iii. 161, 483; Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne,' i. 292, 293.) 1 See No. 156. 2 As the seats were not reserved, it was customary to send footmen to keep places in the theatre; but their bad manners led to the issue of an order, No person to be admitted to keep places in the pit.' 3 A game at cards. dants; and gentlemen should know that a fine coat is a livery, when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman. I am, SIR, 'Mr. SPECTATOR, Your most humble Servant.' BEDFORDSHIRE, Sept. 1, 1711. 'I AM one of those whom everybody calls a poacher, and sometimes go out to course with a brace of greyhounds, a mastiff, and a spaniel or two; and when I am wearied with coursing, and have killed hares enough, go to an alehouse to refresh myself. I beg the favour of you (as you set up for a reformer) to send us word how many dogs you will allow us to go with, how many full pots of ale to drink, and how many hares to kill in a day, and you will do a great piece of service to all the sportsmen: be quick then, for the time of coursing is come on. Yours in haste, T. No. 169. ISAAC HEDGEDITCH.' Thursday, Sept. 13, 1711 Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati: MAN -TER., And., Act i. sc. 1. AN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of affliction is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon another. Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's speculation. Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable. There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is . what we express by the word 'good-breeding.' For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of good-nature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced into an art. These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good-nature; but without it are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which, when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety. Good-nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment from the world are great cherishers of it where they find it, but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is one of the blessings of a happy constitution, which education may improve but not produce. Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince, whom he describes as a pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him, and gives many remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life. Nay, on his deathbed he describes him as being pleased that while his soul returned to Him who made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reason he gives his sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it. An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind. In that celebrated passage of Sallust,2 where Cæsar and Cato are placed in such beautiful but opposite lights, Cæsar's character is chiefly made up of good1 Cyropædia, Book viii. chap. 7, sect. 3. 2 Bell. Catal., chap. 54. |
