men who value themselves upon their families, and overlook such as are bred to trade, bear the tools of their forefathers in their coats of arms. I will not examine how true this is in fact: but though it may not be necessary for posterity thus to set up the sign of their forefathers; I think it highly proper for those 5 who actually profess the trade, to show some such marks of it before their doors.

"When the name gives an occasion for an ingenious sign-post, I would likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of letting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous 10 for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the sign of the Trout; for which reason she has erected before her house the figure of the fish that is her name-sake. Mr. Bell has likewise distinguished himself by a device of the same nature: and here, Sir, I must beg leave to observe to you, that this particular figure 15 of a bell has given occasion to several pieces of wit in this kind. A man of your reading must know that Abel Drugger gained great applause by it in the time of Ben Jonson. Our apocryphal heathen god is also represented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the dragon, makes a very handsome picture in 20 several of our streets. As for the Bell Savage, which is the sign of a savage man standing by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out of the French; which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in the wilder- 25 ness, and is called in the French La Belle Sauvage; and is everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage. This piece of philology will, I hope, convince you that I have made signposts my study, and consequently qualified myself for the employment which I solicit at your hands. But before I conclude my 30 letter, I must communicate to you another remark which I have made upon the subject with which I am now entertaining you, namely, that I can give a shrewd guess at the humour of the inhabitant by the sign that hangs before his door. A surly choleric fellow, generally makes choice of a bear; as men of milder dispositions 35 frequently live at the Lamb. Seeing a punch-bowl painted upon a sign near Charing Cross, and very curiously garnished, with a

couple of angels hovering over it, and squeezing a lemon into it, I had the curiosity to ask after the master of the house, and found upon inquiry, as I had guessed by the little agrémens upon his sign, that he was a Frenchman. I know, Sir, it is not requisite 5 for me to enlarge upon these hints to a gentleman of your great abilities; so humbly recommending myself to your favour and patronage,

66

'I remain, etc."

I shall add to the foregoing letter another, which Io came to me by the same penny-post.

"From my own apartment near Charing Cross.

"HONOURED SIR,

Having heard that this nation is a great encourager of ingenuity, I have brought with me a rope-dancer that was caught 15 in one of the woods belonging to the Great Mogul. He is by birth a monkey; but swings upon a rope, takes a pipe of tobacco, and drinks a glass of ale, like any reasonable creature. He gives great satisfaction to the quality; and if they will make a subscription for him, I will send for a brother of his out of Holland 20 that is a very good tumbler; and also for another of the same family whom I design for my Merry-Andrew, as being an excellent mimic, and the greatest droll in the country where he now is. I hope to have this entertainment in a readiness for the next winter; and doubt not but it will please more than the opera or 25 puppet-show. I will not say that a monkey is a better man than some of the opera heroes; but certainly he is a better representative of a man, than the most artificial composition of wood and wire. If you will be pleased to give me a good word in your paper, you shall be every night a spectator at my show for 30 nothing, "I am, etc."

No. 35.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10. [1711.]

Risu inepto res ineption nulla est.-MART.

AMONG all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors are more apt to miscarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel. It is not an imagination that teems with monsters, an head that is filled with 5 extravagant conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the world with diversions of this nature; and yet if we look into the productions of several writers, who set up for men of humour, what wild irregular fancies, what unnatural distortions of 10 thought, do we meet with? If they speak nonsense, they believe they are talking humour; and when they have drawn together a scheme of absurd inconsistent ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. These poor gentle- 15 men endeavour to gain themselves the reputation of wits and humourists, by such monstrous conceits as almost qualify them for Bedlam; not considering that humour should always lie under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the 20 nicest judgment, by so much the more as it indulges itself in the most boundless freedoms. There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in this sort of compositions, as well as in all other; and a certain regularity of thought which must discover the 25 writer to be a man of sense, at the same time that he appears altogether given up to caprice. For my

1

1 1771, that must discover,

part, when I read the delirious mirth of an unskillful author, I cannot be so barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man, than to laugh at anything he writes.

5 The deceased Mr. Shadwell, who had himself a great deal of the talent which I am treating of, represents an empty rake, in one of his plays, as very much surprised to hear one say that breaking of windows was not humour; and I question not 10 but several English readers will be as much startled to hear me affirm, that many of those raving incoherent pieces, which are often spread among us, under odd chimerical titles, are rather the offsprings of a distempered brain, than works of humour.

15

It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as Cowley has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind 20 of allegory, and by supposing Humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, who married 25 a lady of a collateral line called Mirth, by whom he had issue Humour. Humour therefore being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended. from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his temper; sometimes you 30 see him putting on grave looks and a solemn habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour, and fantastic in his dress insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as jocular as a

Merry-Andrew. But as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh.

But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him2 the name of this young gentleman, and 5 would willingly pass for him in the world; to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether 10 or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with him. 15 For as True Humour generally look serious, while everybody laughs about him; False Humour is always laughing, whilst every body about him looks. serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass 20 for the offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altogether spurious, and a cheat.

5

The impostor of whom I am speaking, descends originally from Falsehood, who was the mother of 25 Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a son called Frenzy, who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which I have been here speaking. I shall set down at length 30 the genealogical table of False Humour, and, at the

2 1711, there are several impostors abroad, who take upon them.

1711, imposed upon by counterfeits. 4 1711, with any of these pretenders.

5 1711, whilst everybody laughs that is about him.