the wantonness of new appearances; but on such also who have just enough to clothe them. An old acquaintance of mine, of ninety pounds a-year, who has naturally the vanity of being a man of fashion deep at his heart, is very much put to it to bear the mortality of princes. He made a new black suit upon the death of the King of Spain, he turned it for the king of Portugal, and he now keeps his chamber while it is scouring for the Emperor. He is a good economist in his extravagance, and makes only a fresh black button upon his iron-gray suit for any potentate of small territories; he indeed adds his crape hatband for a prince whose exploits he has admired in the Gazette. But whatever compliments may be made on these occasions, the true mourners are the mercers, silkmen, lacemen, and milliners. A prince of a merciful and royal disposition would reflect with great anxiety upon the prospect of his death, if he considered what numbers would be reduced to misery by that accident only. He would think it of moment enough to direct, that in the notification of his departure, the honour done to him might be restrained to those of the household of the prince to whom it should be signified. He would think a general mourning to be in a less degree the same ceremony which is practised in barbarous nations, of killing their slaves to attend the obsequies of their kings.

I had been wonderfully at a loss for many months together, to guess at the character of a man who came now and then to our coffee-house. He ever ended a news-paper with this reflection, 'Well, I see all the foreign princes are in good health.' If you asked, 'Pray, sir, what says the postman from Vienna?' He answered, Make us thankful, the German Princes are all well.' · What does he say from Barcelona?" 'He does not speak but that the country agrees very well with the new queen.' After very much inquiry,

I found this man of universal loyalty was a wholesale dealer in silks and ribbons. His way is, it seems, if he hires a weaver or workman, to have it inserted in his articles, that all this shall be well and truly performed, provided no foreign potentate shall depart this life within the time abovementioned.' It happens in all public mournings that the many trades which depend upon our habits, are during that folly either pinched with present want, or terrified with the apparent approach of it. All the atonement which men can make for wanton expenses, which is a sort of insulting the scarcity under which others labour, is, that the superfluities of the wealthy give supplies to the necessities of the poor; but instead of any other good arising from the affectation of being in courtly habits of mourning, all order seems to be destroyed by it; and the true honour which one court does to another on that occasion loses its force and efficacy. When a foreign minister beholds the court of a nation, which flourishes in riches and plenty, lay aside, upon the loss of his master, all marks of splendor and magnificence, though the head of such a joyful people, he will conceive a greater idea of the honour done his master, than when he sees the generality of the people in the same habit. When one is afraid to ask the wife of a tradesman, whom she has lost of her family? and after some preparation endeavours to know whom she mourns for; how ridiculous is it to hear her explain herself, That we have lost one of the house of Austria!' Princes are elevated so highly above the rest of mankind, that it is a presumptuous distinction to take a part in honours done to their memories, except we have authority for it, by being related in a particular manner to the court which pays that veneration to their friendship, and seems to express on such an occasion the sense of the uncertainty of human life in general, by assuming the habit

of sorrow, though in the full possession of triumph and royalty.

R

No. 65. TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1711.

Demetri, teque, Tigelli,

Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.

HOR. SAT. i. 10. 90.

Demetrius and Tigellius, know your place;

Go hence, and whine among the school-boy race.

AFTER having at large explained what wit is, and described the false appearances of it, all that labour seems but an useless inquiry, without some time be spent in considering the application of it. The seat of wit, when one speaks as a man of the town and the world, is the playhouse; I shall therefore fill this paper with reflections upon the use of it in that place. The application of wit in the theatre has as strong an effect upon the manners of our gentlemen, as the taste of it has upon the writings of our authors. It may, perhaps, look like a very presumptuous work, though not foreign from the duty of a Spectator, to tax the writings of such as have long had the general applause of a nation; but I shall always make reason, truth, and nature the measures of praise and dispraise; if those are for me, the generality of opinion is of no consequence against me; if they are against me, the general opinion cannot long support me.

Without further preface, I am going to look into some of our most applauded plays, and see whether they deserve the figure they at present bear in the imaginations of men or not.

In reflecting upon these works, I shall chiefly dwell upon that for which each respective play is most cele

brated. The present paper shall be employed upon Sir Fopling Flutter*. The received character of this play is, that it is the pattern of genteel comedy. Dorimant and Harriet are the characters of greatest consequence, and if these are low and mean, the reputation of the play is very unjust.

I will take for granted, that a fine gentleman should be honest in his actions, and refined in his language. Instead of this, our hero in this piece is a direct knave in his designs, and a clown in his language. Bellair is his admirer and friend; in return for which, because he is forsooth a greater wit than his said friend, he thinks it reasonable to persuade him to marry a young lady, whose virtue, he thinks, will last no longer than till she is a wife, and then she cannot but fall to his share, as he is an irresistible fine gentleman. The falsehood to Mrs. Loveit, and the barbarity of triumphing over her anguish for losing him, is another instance of his honesty, as well as his good-nature. As to his fine language; he calls the orange-woman, who, it seems is inclined to grow fat, An overgrown jade, with a flasket of guts before her;' and salutes her with a pretty phrase of How now, Double Tripe?' Upon the mention of a country-gentlewoman, whom he knows nothing of, no one can imagine why, he will lay his life she is some awkward ill-fashioned country-toad, who, not having above four dozen of hairs on her head, has adorned her baldness with a large white fruz, that she may look sparkishly in the fore-front of the king's box at an old play.' Unnatural mixture of senseless common-place!

6

As to the generosity of his temper, he tells his

* The man of the Mode. Sir Fopling was Beau Hewit, son of Sir Thomas Hewit, of Pishiobury in Hertfordshire, bart.; and the author's own character is represented in Bellair.

poor

footman,

turn him

you.'

If he did not wait better,' he would away, in the insolent phrase of, I'll uncase

Now for Mrs. Harriet. She laughs at obedience to an absent mother, whose tenderness Busy describes to be very exquisite, for, that she is so pleased with finding Harriet again, that she cannot chide her for being out of the way.' This witty daughter and fine lady has so little respect for this good woman, that she ridicules her air in taking leave, and cries, In what struggle is my poor mother yonder! See, see, her head tottering, her eyes staring, and her under lip trembling.' But all this is atoned for, because she has more wit than is usual in her sex, and as much malice, though she is as wild as you would wish her, and has a demureness in her looks that makes it so surprising.' Then to recommend her as a fit spouse for his hero, the poet makes her speak her sense of marriage very ingeniously: I think,' says she, I might be brought to endure him, and that is all a reasonable woman should expect in a husband.' It is methinks unnatural, that we are not made to understand, how she that was bred under a silly pious old mother, that would never trust her out of her sight, came to be so polite.

It cannot be denied, but that the negligence of every thing which engages the attention of the sober and valuable part of mankind, appears very well drawn in this piece. But it is denied, that it is necessary to the character of a fine gentleman, that he should in that manner trample upon all order and decency. As for the character of Dorimant, it is more of a coxcomb than that of Fopling. He says of one of his companions, that a good correspondence between them is their mutual interest. Speaking of that friend, he declares, their being much together 'makes the women think the better of his under