correct staring, by an optical contrivance of new perspective glasses, short and commodious like opera-glasses, fit for short-sighted people as well as others, these glasses making the objects appear either as they are seen by the naked eye, or more distinct though somewhat less than life, or bigger and nearer. A person may, by the help of his invention, take a view of another without the impertinence of staring; at the same time it shall not be possible to know whom or what he is looking at. One may look towards his right or left hand, when he is supposed to look forwards; this is set forth at large in the printed proposals for the sale of these glasses, to be had at Mr. Dillon's, in Long-Acre, next door to the White-Hart. Now, sir, as your Spectator has occasioned the publishing of this invention for the benefit of modest spectators, the inventor desires your admonitions concerning the decent use of it; and hopes, by your recommendation, that, for the future, beauty may be beheld without the torture and confusion which it suffers from the insolence of starers. By this means you will relieve the innocent from an insult which there is no law to punish, though it is a greater offence than many which are within the cognizance of justice.* 'I am, sir, * "Your most humble servant, ABRAHAM SPY. Q. The optical glass here mentioned is very common and very contemptible. VOL. V.-12 No. 251. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18. -Linguæ centum sunt, oraque centum, Ferrea vox VIRG. -A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, And throats of brass, inspir'd with iron lungs. DRYDEN. THERE is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner, and frights a country 'squire, than the cries of London. My good friend Sir Roger, often declares that he can not get them out of his head, or go to sleep for them, the first week that he is in town. On the contrary, Will Honeycomb calls them the Ramage de la ville, and prefers them to the sounds of larks and nightingales, with all the music of the fields and woods. I have lately received a letter from some very odd fellow upon this subject; which I shall leave with my reader, without saying any thing further of it. 6 SIR, "I am a man out of all business, and would willingly turn my head to any thing for an honest livelihood. I have invented several projects for raising many millions of money without burdening the subject, but I can not get the parliament to listen to me, who look upon me, forsooth, as a crack and a projector, so that, despairing to enrich either myself or my country by this publicspiritedness, I would make some proposals to you relating to a design which I have very much at heart, and which may procure me a very handsome subsistence, if you will be pleased to recommend it to the cities of London and Westminster. The post I would aim at, is to be comptrollergeneral of the London-cries, which are at present under no manner of rules or discipline. I think 1 am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great insight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent skill in music. The cries of London may be divided into vocal and instrumental. As for the latter, they are at present under a very great disorder. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street for an hour together with the twanking of a brass kettle or a frying-pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds as much as the breaking in of a thief. The sowgelder's horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the liberties. ĺ would therefore propose, that no instrument of this nature should be made use of, which I have not tuned and licensed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her majesty's liege subjects. Vocal cries are of a much larger extent, and indeed so full of incongruities and barbarisms, that we appear a distracted city to foreigners, who do not comprehend the meaning of such enormous outcries. Milk is generally sold in a note above E-la, and in sounds so exceeding shrill, that it often sets our teeth on edge. The chimney-sweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he sometimes utters himself in the deepest bass, and sometimes in the sharpest treble; sometimes in the highest, and sometimes in the lowest note of the gamut. The same observation might be made on the retailers of small coal, not to mention bro ken glasses or brick-dust. In these, therefore, and the like cases, it should be my care to sweeten and mellow the voices of these itinerant tradesmen, before they make their appearance in our streets, as also to accommodate their cries to their respective wares; and to take care in particular, that those may not make the most noise who have the least to sell, which is very observable in the venders of card-matches, to whom I can not but apply that old proverb of Much cry, but little wool.' 'Some of these last-mentioned musicians are so very loud in the sale of these trifling manufactures, that an honest splenetic gentleman of my acquaintance bargained with one of them never to come into the street where he lived: but what was the effect of this contract? Why the whole tribe of card-match-makers which frequent that quarter, passed by his door the very next day, in hopes of being bought off after the same manner. It is another great imperfection in our London cries, that there is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news should indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should not, however, be cried with the same precipitation as fire; yet this is generally the case: a bloody battle alarms the town from one end to another in an instant. Every motion of the French is published in so great a hurry, that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likewise I would take upon me to regulate in such a manner, that there should be some distinction made between the spreading of a victory, a march, or an encampment, a Dutch, a Portugal, or a Spanish mail. Nor must I omit, under this head, those excessive alarms with which several boisterous rustics infest our streets in turnip-season, and which are more inexcusable, because these are wares which are in no danger of cooling upon their hands. 'There are others who affect a very slow time, and are, in my opinion, much more tuneable than the former, the cooper in particular, swells his last note in a hollow voice, that is not without its harmony; nor can I forbear being inspired with a most agreeable melancholy, when I hear that sad and solemn air with which the public are very often asked if they have any chairs to mend? Your own memory may suggest to you many other lamentable ditties of the same nature, in which the music is wonderfully languishing and melodious. 'I am always pleased with that particular time of the year which is proper for the picking of dill and cucumbers; but alas! this cry, like the song of the nightingale, is not heard above two months. It would, therefore, be worth while to consider, whether the same air might not in some cases be adapted to other words. 'It might likewise deserve our most serious consideration, how far, in a well regulated city, those humorists are to be tolerated, who, not contented with the traditional cries of their forefathers, have invented particular songs and tunes of their own; such as was, not many years since, the pastry man, commonly known by the name of the Colly-Molly-Puff, and such as is at this * This little man was but just able to support the basket of pastry which he carried on his head, and sung in a very |
