is delivered to them, at the same time that | stole it from him one day in the midst of his they show the speaker is in earnest, and af- pleading; but he had better have let it fected himself with what he so passionately alone, for he lost his cause by his jest. recommends to others. Violent gesture and vociferation naturally shake the hearts of the ignorant, and fill them with a kind of religious horror. Nothing is more frequent than to sec women weep and tremble at the sight of a moving preacher, though he is placed quite out of their hearing; as in England we very frequently see people lulled to sleep, with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowing and distortions of enthusiasm.

If nonsense, when accompanied with such an emotion of voice and body, has such an influence on men's minds, what might we not expect from many of those admirable discourses which are printed in our tongue, were they delivered with a becoming fervour, and with the most agreeable graces of voice and gesture!

I have all along acknowledged myself to be a dumb man, and therefore may be thought a very improper person to give rules for oratory; but I believe every one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to lay aside all kinds of gesture (which seems to be very suitable to the genius of our nation,) or at least to make use of such only as are graceful and expressive. O.

No. 408.] Wednesday, June 18, 1712.

subjacere, serviliter.-Tull. de Finibus.
Decet affectus animi neque se nimium erigere, nec

indulged, nor servilely depressed.
The affections of the heart ought not to be too much

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have always been a very great lover of your speculations, as We are told that the great Latin orator well in regard to the subject as to your manvery much impaired his health by the late-ner of treating it. Human nature I always rum contentio, the vehemence of action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and seeing his friends admire it, could not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence?

How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these two great men, does an orator often make at the British bar, holding up his head with the most insipid serenity, and stroking the sides of a long wig that reaches down to his middle! The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the gestures of an English speaker: you see some of them running their hands into their pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, and others looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing written on it; you may see many a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into several different cocks, examining sometimes the lining of it, and sometimes the button, during the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when perhaps he is talking of the fate of the British nation. I remember, when I was a young man, and used to frequent Westminster-hall, there was a counsellor who never pleaded without a piece of pack-thread in his hand, which he used to twist about a thumb or a finger all the while he was speaking: the wags of those days used to call it the thread of his discourse,' for he was unable to utter a word without it. One of his clients, who was more merry than wise,

thought the most useful object of human reason; and to make the consideration of it pleasant and entertaining, I always thought the best employment of human wit: other parts of philosophy may perhaps make us wiser, but this not only answers that end, but makes us better too. Hence it was that the oracle pronounced Socrates the wisest of all men living, because he judiciously made choice of human nature for the object of his thoughts; an inquiry into which, as much exceeds all other learning, as it is of more consequence to adjust the true nature and measures of right and wrong, than to settle the distances of the planets, and compute the time of their circumvolutions.

'One good effect that will immediately arise from a near observation of human nature, is, that we shall cease to wonder at those actions which men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for, as nothing is produced without a cause, so by observing the nature and course of the passions, we shall be able to trace every action from its first conception to its death. We shall no more admire at the proceedings of Catiline or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel jealousy, the other by a furious ambition: for the actions of men follow their passions as naturally as light does heat, or as any other effect flows from its cause; reason must be employed in adjusting the passions, but they must ever remain the principles of action.

'The strange and absurd variety that is so apparent in men's actions, shows plainly they can never proceed immediately from reason; so pure a fountain emits no such troubled waters: they must necessarily arise from the passions, which are to the mind as the winds to a ship; they can only move it, and they too often destroy it: if fair and gentle, they guide it into the harbour; if

1

No. 409.] Thursday, June 19, 1712.

-Museo contingere cuncta lepore. Lucr. Lib. i. 933. To grace each subject with enliv’ning wit. GRATIAN very often recommends fine taste as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man.

thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too usual among tasteless readers,) that the author wants those perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering them.

He should, in the second place, be very careful to observe, whether he tastes the distinguishing perfections, or, if I may be alAs this word arises very often in conver-lowed to call them so, the specific qualities sation, I shall endeavour to give some account of it, and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may acquire that fine taste of writing, which is so much talked of among the polite world.

Most languages make use of this metaphor, to express that faculty of the mind which distinguishes all the most concealed faults and nicest perfections in writing. We may be sure this metaphor would not have been so general in all tongues, had there not been a very great conformity between that mental taste, which is the subject of this paper, and that sensitive taste which gives us a relish of every different flavour that affects the palate. Accordingly we find there are as many degrees of refinement in the intellectual faculty as in the sense, which is marked out by this common denomination.

I knew a person who possessed the one in so great a perfection, that, after having tasted ten different kinds of tea, he would distinguish, without seeing the colour of it, the particular sort which was offered him; and not only so, but any two sorts of them that were mixed together in an equal proportion; nay, he has carried the experiment so far, as, upon tasting the composition of three different sorts, to name the parcels from whence the three several ingredients were taken. A man of fine taste in writing will discern, after the same manner, not only the general beauties and imperfections of an author, but discover the several ways of thinking and expressing himself, which diversify him from all other authors, with the several foreign infusions of thought and language, and the particular authors from whom they were borrowed.

of the author whom he peruses; whether he is particularly pleased with Livy, for his manner of telling a story, with Sallust, for entering into those internal principles of action which arise from the characters and manners of the person he describes, or, with Tacitus, for displaying those outward motives of safety and interest which gave birth to the whole series of transactions which he relates.

He may likewise consider how differently he is affected by the same thought which presents itself in a great writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a person of an ordinary genius; for there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light of the sun.

It is very difficult to lay down rules for the acquirement of such a taste as that I am here speaking of. The faculty must in some degree be born with us; and it very often happens, that those who have other qualities in perfection are wholly void of this. One of the most eminent mathematicians of the age has assured me, that the greatest pleasure he took in reading Virgil was in examining Æneas's voyage by the map; as I question not but many a modern compiler of history would be delighted with little more in that divine author than the bare matters of fact.

But, notwithstanding this faculty must in some measure be born with us, there are several methods for cultivating and improving it, and without which it will be very uncertain, and of little use to the person that possesses it. The most natural method for this purpose is to be conversant among the writings of the most polite authors. A man who has any relish for fine writing, either discovers new beauties, or receives stronger impressions, from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

After having thus far explained what is generally meant by a fine taste in writing, and shown the propriety of the metaphor which is used on this occasion, I think I may define it to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.' If a man would know whether he Conversation with men of a polite genius is possessed of this faculty, I would have is another method for improving our natural him read over the celebrated works of an- taste. It is impossible for a man of the tiquity, which have stood the test of so greatest parts to consider any thing in its many different ages and countries, or those whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. works among the moderns which have the Every man besides those general observasanction of the politer part of our contem- tions which are to be made upon an author, poraries. If, upon the perusal of such writ- forms several reflections that are peculiar ings, he does not find himself delighted in to his own manner of thinking; so that conan extraordinary manner, or if, upon read-versation will naturally furnish us with ing the admired passages in such authors, hints which we did not attend to, and make he finds a coldness and indifference in his us enjoy other men's varts and reflections

as well as our own. This is the best reason | No. 410.] Friday, June 20, 1712. I can give for the observation which several -Dum foris sunt, nihil videtur mundius, have made, that men of great genius in the Nec magis compositum quidquam, nec magis elegans: same way of writing seldom rise up singly, Quæ, cum amatore suo cum cænant, liguriunt. but at certain periods of time appear toHarum videre ingluviem, sordes, inopiam: Quam inhonestæ solæ sint domi, atque avidæ cibi, gether, and in a body; as they did at Rome Quo pacto ex jure hesterno panem atrum vorent; in the reign of Augustus, and in Greece Nosse omnia hæc, salus est adolescentulis. about the age of Socrates. I cannot think Ter. Eun. Act v. Sc. 4. that_Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, When they are abroad, nothing so clean and nicely La Fontaine, Bruyere, Bossu, or the Da-dressed; and when at supper with a gallant, they do but piddle, and pick the choicest bits; but to see their nasticiers, would have written so well as they ness and poverty at home, their gluttony, and how they have done, had they not been friends and devour black crusts dipped in yesterday's broth, is a perfect antidote against wenching.' contemporaries.

It is likewise necessary for a man who would form to himself a finished taste of good writing, to be well versed in the works of the best critics, both ancient and modern. I must confess that I could wish there were authors of this kind, who, beside the mechanical rules, which a man of very little taste may discourse upon, would enter into the very spirit and soul of fine writing, and show us the several sources of that pleasure which rises in the mind upon the perusal of a noble work. Thus, although in poetry it be absolutely necessary that the unities of time, place, and action, with other points of the same nature, should be thoroughly explained and understood, there is still something more essential to the art, something that elevates and astonishes the fancy, and gives a greatness of mind to the reader, which few of the critics besides Longinus have considered.

WILL HONEYCOMB, who disguises his present decay by visiting the wenches of the town only by way of humour, told us, that the last rainy night he, with Sir Roger de Coverley, was driven into the Temple cloister, whither had escaped also a lady most exactly dressed from head to foot. Will made no scruple to acquaint us, that she saluted him very familiarly by his name, and turning immediately to the knight, she said, she supposed that was his good friend Sir Roger de Coverley: upon which nothing less could follow than Sir Roger's approach to salutation, with Madam, the same, at your service.' She was dressed in a black tabby mantua and petticoat, without ribands; her linen striped muslin, and in the whole an agreeable second mourning; decent dresses being often affected by the creatures of the town, at once consulting cheapness and the pretension to modesty. She Our general taste in England is for epi- went on with a familiar easy air, 'Your gram, turns of wit, and forced conceits, friend, Mr. Honeycomb, is a little surprised which have no manner of influence either to see a woman here alone and unattended; for the bettering or enlarging the mind of but I dismissed my coach at the gate, and him who reads them, and have been care-tripped it down to my counsel's chambers; fully avoided by the greatest writers, both among the ancients and moderns. I have endeavoured in several of my speculations, to banish this gothic taste, which has taken possession among us. I entertained the town for a week together with an essay upon wit, in which I endeavoured to detect several of those false kinds which have been admired in the different ages of the world, and at the same time to show wherein the nature of true wit consists. I afterwards gave an instance of the great force which lies in a natural simplicity of thought to affect the mind of the reader, from such vulgar pieces as have little else besides this single qualification to recommend them. I have likewise examined the works of the greatest poet which our nation, or perhaps any other, has produced, and particularized most of those rational and manly beauties which give a value to that divine work. I shall next Saturday enter upon an essay on "The Pleasures of the Imagination,' which, though it shall consider the subject at large, will perhaps suggest to the reader what it is that gives a beauty to many passages of the finest writers both in prose and verse, As an undertaking of this nature is entirely new, I question not but it will be received with candour.

0.

for lawyers' fees take up too much of a smalĺ disputed jointure to admit any other expenses but mere necessaries.' Mr. Honeycomb begged they might have the honour of setting her down, for Sir Roger's servant was gone to call a coach. In the interim the foot man returned with 'no coach to be had;' and there appeared nothing to be done but trusting herself with Mr. Honeycomb and his friend, to wait at the tavern at the gate for a coach, or to be subjected to all the impertinence she must meet with in that public place. Mr. Honeycomb being a man of honour, determined the choice of the first, and Sir Roger as the better man, took the lady by the hand, leading her through all the shower, covering her with his hat, and gallanting a familiar acquaintance through rows of young fellows, who winked at Sukey in the state she marched off, Will Honeycomb bringing up the rear.

Much importunity prevailed upon the fair one to admit of a collation, where, after declaring she had no stomach, and having eaten a couple of chickens, devoured a truss of sallet, and drank a full bottle to her share, she sung the Old Man's Wish to Sir Roger. The knight left the room for some time after supper, and writ the following billet, which he conveyed to Sukey,

'I am not so mere a country gentleman, but I can guess at the law business you had at the Temple. If you would go down to the country, and leave off all your vanities but your singing, let me know at my lodgings in Bow-street, Covent-garden, and you | No. 411.] Saturday, June 21, 1712. shall be encouraged by your humble ser