desire, if you give him motion or speech, that you would advance me in my way, and let me keep on in what I humbly presume I am a master, to wit, in representing human and still life together. I have several times acted one of the finest flower-pots in the same opera wherein Mr. Screne is a chair; therefore, upon his promotion, request that I may succeed him in the hangings, with my hand in the orange-trees. ‹ SIR, Your humble servant, RALPH SIMPLE.' Drury Lane, March 24, 1710-11. I SAW your friend the Templar this evening in the pit, and thought he looked very little pleased with the representation of the mad scene of The Pilgrim. I wish, Sir, you would do us the favour to animadvert frequently upon the false taste the town is in, with relation to plays as well as operas. It certainly requires a degree of understanding to play justly; but such is our condition, that we are to suspend our reason to perform our parts. As to scenes of madness, you know, Sir, there are noble instances of this kind in Shakspeare; but then it is the disturbance of a noble mind, from generous and humane resentments. It is like that grief which we have for the decease of our friends. It is no diminution, but a recommendation of human nature, that in such incidents passion gets the better of reason; and all we can think to comfort ourselves, is impotent against half what we feel. I will not mention that we had an idiot in the scene, and all the sense it is represented to have, is that of lust. As for myself, who have long taken pains in personating the passions, I have to-night acted only an appetite. The part I played is Thirst, but it is represented as written rather by a drayman than a poet. I come in with a tub about me, that tub hung with quart pots, with a full gallon at my mouth, I am ashamed to tell you that I pleased very much, and this was introduced as a madness; but sure it was not human madness, for a mule or an ass may have been as dry as ever I was in my life. I am, SIR. Your most obedient and humble servant.' 'From the Savoy in the Strand. Mr. SPECTATOR, 'If you can read it with dry eyes, I give you this trouble to acquaint you, that I am the unfortunate king Latinus, and believe I am the first prince that dated from this palace since John of Gaunt. Such is the uncertainty of all human greatness, that I who lately never moved without a guard, am now pressed as a common soldier, and am to sail with the first fair wind against my brother Louis of France. It is a very hard thing to put off a character which one has appeared in with applause. This I experienced since the loss of my diadem; for, upon quarrelling with another recruit, I spoke my indignation out of my part in recitativo: 66. -Most audacious slave, Dar'st thou an angry monarch's fury brave?" The words were no sooner out of my mouth, when a serjeant knocked me down, and asked me if I had a mind to mutiny, in talking things nobody understood. You see, Sir, my unhappy circumstances; and if by your mediation you can procure a subsidy for a prince, (who never failed to make all that beheld him merry at his appearance) you will merit the thanks of Your friend, THE KING OF LATIUM. ADVERTISEMENT. For the good of the public. Within two doors of the masquerade lives an eminent Italian chirurgeon, arrived from the carnival at Venice, of great experience in private cures. Accommodations are provided, and persons admitted in their masquing habits. He has cured since his coming hither, in less than a fortnight, four scaramouches, a mountebank doctor, two Turkish bassas, three nuns, and a morris-dancer. • Venienti occurrite morbo.* N. B. Any person may agree by the great, and be kept in repair by the year. The doctor draws teeth without pulling off your masque. STEELE No. 23. TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1711. Sævit atrox Volscens, nec teli conspicit usquam Fierce Volscens foams with rage, and, gazing round, DRYDEN. THERE is nothing that more betrays a base ungene rous spirit, than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation; lampoons and satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. For this reason I am very much troubled when I see the talents of humour and ridicule in the possession of an ill-natured man. There cannot be a greater gratification to a barbarous and inhuman wit, than to stir up sorrow in the heart of a private person, to raise uneasiness among near relations, and to expose whole families to derision, at the same time that he remains unseen and undiscovered. If, besides the accomplishments of being witty and ill-natured, a man is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the most mischievous creatures that can enter into a civil society. His satire will then chiefly fall upon those who ought to be the most exempt from it. Virtue, merit, and every thing that is praise-worthy, will be made the subject of ridicule and buffoonery. It is impossible to enumerate the evils which arise from these arrows that fly in the dark, and I know no other excuse that is or can be made for them, than that the wounds they give are only imaginary, and produce nothing more than a *This article has been said to have been levelled at Swift. We find that there was a coolness between him and Addison, by a passage in Swift's Works, vol, xiv. 240, and xv. 76, edit. 1801. 'secret shame or sorrow in the mind of the suffering person. It must indeed be confessed, that a lampoon or a satire do not carry in them robbery or murder; but at the same time how many are there that would not rather lose a considerable sum of money, or even life itself, than be set up as a mark of infamy and derision? and in this case a man should consider, that an injury is not to be measured by the notions of him that gives, but of him that receives it. Those who can put the best countenance upon the outrages of this nature which are offered them, are not without their secret anguish. I have often observed a passage in Socrates's behaviour at his death, in a light wherein none of the critics have considered it. That excellent man entertaining his friends, a little before he drank the bowl of poison, with a discourse on the immortality of the soul, at his entering upon it, says, that he does not believe any of the most comic genius can censure him for talking upon such a subject at such a time. This passage, I think, evidently glances upon Aristophanes, who writ a comedy on purpose to ridicule the discourses of that divine philosopher. It has been observed by many writers, that Socrates was so little moved at this piece of buffoonery, that he was several times present at its being acted upon the stage, and never expressed the least resentment at it. But, with submission, I think the remark I have here made shews us, that this unworthy treatment made an impression upon his mind, though he had been too wise to discover it. When Julius Cæsar was lampooned by Catullus, he invited him to supper, and treated him with such a generous civility, that he made the poet his friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarine gave the same kind of treatment to the learned Quillet, who had reflected upon his eminence in a famous Latin poem. The cardinal sent for him, and, after some kind expostulations upon what he had written, assured him of his esteem, and dismissed him with a promise of the next good abbey that should fall, which he accordingly conferred upon him în a few months after. This had so good an effect upon the author, that he dedicated the second edition of his book to the cardinal, after having expunged the passa ges which had given him offence. Sextus Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was one night dressed in a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear foul linen, because his laundress was made a princess. This was a reflection upon the pope's sister, who, before the promotion of her brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented her. As this pasquinade made a great noise at Rome, the pope offered a considerable sum of money to any person that should discover the author of it. The author, relying upon his holiness's generosity, as also on some private overtures which he had received from him, made the discovery himself; upon which the pope gave him the reward he had promised, but at the same time, to disable the satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both his hands to be chopped off. Aretine is too trite an instance. Every one knows that all the kings of Europe were his tributaries. Nay, there is a letter of his extant, in which he makes his boasts that he had laid the Sophi of Persia under contribution. Though in the various examples which I have here drawn together, these several great men behaved themselves very differently towards the wits of the age who * Peter Aretine, a native of Arezzo, who lived in the 16th cen tury, was infamous for his satirical writings; and was so bold as to carry his invectives even against sovereigns; whence he got the title of the Scourge of Princes. He used to boast, that his lampoons did more service to the world than sermons; and it was said of him, that he had subjected more princes by his pen, than the greatest warriors had ever done by their arms. Aretine wrote also many irreligious and obscene pieces. Some say, that he af terwards changed his loose, libertine principles; but however this may be, it is certain that he composed several pieces of devotion He was author likewise of some comedies, which were esteemed pretty good of their kind; and died in the year 1556, being about 65 years old. It is said by some, that he fell into such a fit of laughter, on hearing some obscene conversation, that he overturned the chair upon which he sat, and that, falling, he hurt his head, and died upon the spot. |