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Mr. SPECTATOR,

UNDERSTANDING that Mr. Screne has writ

to you, and defired to be raised from dumb and ftill Parts; I defire, if you give him Motion or Speech, that you would advance me in my Way, and let me keep on in what I humbly prefume I am a Mafter, to wit, in reprefenting human and ftill Life together. I ⚫ have feveral times acted one of the finest Flower-pots in the fame Opera wherein Mr. Screne is a Chair; there"fore upon his Promotion, requeft that I may fucceed him in the Hangings, with my Hand in the OrangeTrees.

Your Humble Servant,

Ralph Simple.

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SIR,

Drury-Lane, March 24, 1710-11. I Saw your Friend the Templer this Evening in the Pit, and thought he looked very little pleafed with the Reprefentation of the mad Scene of the Pilgrim. I wifh, Sir, you would do us the Favour to animadvert frequently upon the falfe Tafte the Town is in, with Relation to Plays as well as Operas. It certainly requires a Degree of Understanding to play justly; but fuch is our Condition, that we are to fufpend our Reafon to perform our Parts. As to Scenes of Madness, you know, Sir, there are noble Inftances of this kind in Shakespear; but then it is the Disturbance of a noble Mind, from generous and human Refentments: It is like that Grief which we have for the Decease of our Friends: It is no Diminution, but a Recommendation ⚫ of humane Nature, that in fuch Incidents Paflion gets the better of Reafon; and all we can think to comfort our felves, 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 reprefented to have, is that of Luft. As for my felf, who have long taken Pains in ⚫ perfonating the Paffions, I have to-night acted only an Appetite. The Part I play'd is Thirft, but it is repre⚫ fented as written rather by a Dray-man than a Poet. I come in with a Tub about me, that Tub hung with

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Quart

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Quart-pots, with a full Gallon at my Mouth. I am afhamed to tell you that I pleafed very much, and this was introduced as a Madness; but fure it was not human Madness, for a Mule or an Afs may have been as dry as ever I was in my Life.

I am, SIR,

Your moft obedient and humble Servant.

Mr. SPECTATOR, From the Savoy in the Strand. F you can read it with dry Eyes, I give you this Trouble to acquaint you, that I am unfortu · nate King Latinus, and believe I am the firft Prince that dated from this Palace fince John of Gaunt. Such is the Uncertainty of all human Greatnefs, that I who lately never moved without a Guard, am now preffed as a common Soldier, and am to fail with the first fair • Wind against my Brother Lewis of France. It is a very hard thing to put off a Character which one has appeared in with Applaufe: This I experienced fince the Lofs. of my Diadem; for upon quarrelling with another Re'cruit, I fpoke my Indignation out of my Part in reci ⚫tativo;

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Moft audacious Slave,

Dar'ft thou an angry Monarch's Fury brave?

The Words were no fooner out of my Mouth, when ⚫ a Serjeant knock'd me down, and asked me if I had a Mind to mutiny, in talking things no body understood. You fee, Sir, my unhappy Circumftances; and if by Your Mediation you can procure a Subfidy for a Prince (who never failed to make all that beheld him merry : at his Appearance) you will merit the Thanks of Your Friend,

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The King of Latium.

ADVERTISEMENT.

For the Good of the Publick.

WITHIN two Doors of the Masquerade, lives an emiment Italian Chirurgion, arrived from the Carnaval at Venice, of great Experience in private Cures. Accommo

dations

dations are provided, and Perfons admitted in their Mafquing Habit.

HE has cured fince his coming thither, in less than a Fortnight, Four Scaramouches, a Mountebank Doctor, Two Turkish Baffa's, Three Nuns, and a Morris-Dancer.

Venienti occurrite Morbo.

N. B. ANY Perfon may agree by the Great, and be kept in Repair by the Year. The Doctor draws Teeth without pulling off your Mask.

R

N° 23.

Tuesday, March 27.

T

Sevit atrox Volfcens, nec teli confpicit ufquam
Auctorem, nec quo fe ardens immittere poffit.

Virg.

HERE is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous Spirit, than the giving of fecret Stabs to a Man's Reputation. Lampoons and Satyrs, that are written with Wit and Spirit, are like poifoned Darts, which not only inflict a Wound, but make it incurable. For this Reafon I am very much troubled when I fee the Talents of Humour and Ridicule in the Poffeffion of an ill-natured Man. There cannot be a greater Gratification to a barbarous and inhuman Wit, than to ftir up Sorrow in the Heart of a private Person, to raise Uneafiness among near Relations, and to expofe whole Families to Derifion, at the fame time that he remains unfeen and undifcovered. If, befides 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 Satyr will then chiefly fall upon those who ought to be the most exempt from it. Virtue, Merit, and every thing that is Praife-worthy, will be made the Subject of Ridicule and Buffoonry. It is impoffible to enumerate the Evils which arife from thefe Arrows that fly in the dark, and I know no other

Excufe that is or can be made for them, than that the Wounds they give are only imaginary, and produce nothing more than a fecret Shame or Sorrow in the Mind of the fuffering Perfon. It muft indeed be confefs'd, that a Lampoon or a Satyr do not carry in them Robbery or Murder; but at the fame time, how many are there that would not rather lofe a confiderable Sum of Money, or even Life it felf, than be fet up as a Mark of Infamy and Derifion? And in this Cafe a Man fhould confider, 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 fecret Anguish. I have often observed a Paffage in Socrates's Behaviour at his Death, in a Light wherein none of the Criticks have confidered it. That excellent Man, entertaining his Friends, a little before he drank the Bowl of Poison, with a Difcourfe on the Immortality of the Soul, at his entering upon it fays, that he does not believe any the most Comick Genius can cenfure him for talking upon fuch a Subject at fuch a time. This Paffage, I think, evidently glances upon Ariftophanes, who writ a Comedy on purpose to ridicule the Difcourfes of that Divine Philofopher. It has been obferved by many Writers, that Socrates was fo little moved at this piece of Buffoonry, that he was feveral times prefent at its being acted upon the Stage, and never expreffed the leaft Refentment of it. But with Submiffon, I think the Remark I have here made fhews us that this unworthy Treatment made an Impreffion upon his Mind, though he had been too wife to discover it.

WHEN Julius Cafar was lampooned by Catullus, he invited him to a Supper, and treated him with fuch a generous Civility, that he made the Poet his Friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarine gave the fame kind of Treatment to the Learned Quillet, who had reflected upon his Eminence in a famous Latin Poem. The Cardinal fent for him, and after fome kind Expoftulations upon what he had written, affured him of his Efteem, and difiniffed him with a Promife of the next good Abby that fhould fall, which he accordingly conferred upon him in a few Months after. This had fo good an Effect upon

the

the Author, that he dedicated the fecond Edition of his Book to the Cardinal, after having expunged the Paffages which had given him Offence.

SEXTUS QUINTUS was not of fo generous and forgiving a Temper. Upon bis being made Pope, the Statue of Pafquin was one Night dreffed in a very dirty Shirt, with an Excufe written under it, that he was forced to wear foul Linnen because his Laundrefs was made a Princefs. This was a Reflection upon the Pope's Sifter, who, before the Promotion of her Brother, was in those mean Circumstances that Pafquin reprefented her. As this Pafquinade made a great Noife in Rome, the Pope offered a confiderable Sum of Money to any Person that fhould discover the Author of it. The Author relying upon his Holiness's Generofity, as alfo on fome private Overtures which he had received from him, made the Difcovery himself; upon which the Pope gave him the Reward he had promised, but at the fame time, to difable the Satyrift for the future, ordered his Tongue to be cut out, and both his Hands to be chopped off. Aretine is too trite an Inftance. 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 Boafts that he had laid the Sophy of Perfia under Contribution.

THOUGH in the various Examples which I have here drawn together, thefe feveral great Men behaved themselves very differently towards the Wits of the Age who had reproached them; they all of them plainly fhewed that they were very fenfible of their Reproaches, and confequently that they received them as very great Injuries. For my own part, I would never truft a Man that I thought was capable of giving thefe fecret Wounds; and cannot but think that he would hurt the Perfon, whofe Reputation he thus affaults, in his Body or in his Fortune, could he do it with the fame Security. There is indeed fomething very barbarous and inhuman in the ordinary Scriblers of Lampoons. An innocent young Lady fhall be expofed, for an unhappy Feature. A Father of a Family turned to Ridicule, for fome domestick Calamity. A Wife be made uneafie all her Life, for a mifinterpreted Word or Action. Nay, a good, a temperate, and a juft Man, fhall be put out of Countenance by

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