(long since you left us without saying any thing) several of these inferior hebdomadal societies, as the Punning club, the Witty club, and amongst the rest, the Handsome club; as a burlesque upon which, a certain merry species, that seem to have come into the world in masquerade, for some years last past have associated themselves together, and assumed the name of the Ugly club. This ill-favoured fraternity consists of a president and twelve fellows; the choice of which is not confined by patent to any particular foundation (as St. John's men would have the world believe, and have therefore erected a separate society within themselves), but liberty is left to elect from any school in Great Britain, provided the candidates be within the rules of the club, as set forth in a table, entitled, The Act of Deformity: a clause or two of which I shall transmit to you.

"1. That no person whatsoever shall be admitted without a visible quearity in his aspect, or peculiar cast of countenance; of which the president and officers for the time being are to determine, and the president to have the casting voice.

"2. That a singular regard be had upon examination, to the gibbosity of the gentlemen that offer themselves as founder's kinsmen; or to the obliquity of their figure, in what sort soever.

"3. That if the quantity of any man's nose be eminently miscalculated, whether as to length or breadth, he shall have a just pretence to be elected. "Lastly, That if there shall be two or more competitors for the same vacancy, caieris paribus, he that has the thickest skin to have the preference.

"Every fresh member, upon his first night, is to entertain the company with a dish of cod-fish, and a speech in praise of Esop, whose portraiture they have in full proportion, or rather disproportion, over the chimney; and their design is, as soon as their funds are sufficient, to purchase the heads of Thersites, Duns Scotus, Scarron, Hudibras, and the old gentleman in Oldham, with all the celebrated ill faces of antiquity, as furniture for the club-room.

"As they have always been professed admirers of the other sex, so they unanimously declare that they will give all possible encouragement to such as will take the benefit of the statute, though none yet have appeared to do it.

But now our nobles too are fops and vain,
Neglect the sense, but love the painted scene.-CREECH.

Ir is my design in this paper to deliver down to posterity a faithful account of the Italian opera, and of the gradual progress which it has made upon the English stage; for there is no question but our great grand-children will be curious to know the reason why their forefathers used to sit together ke an audience of foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue which they did not understand.

Arsinoe was the first opera that gave us a taste of Italian music. The great success this opera met with produced some attempts of forming pieces upon Italian plans, which should give a more natural and reasonable entertainment than what can be met with in the elaborate trifles of that nation. This alarmed the poetasters and fiddlers of the town, who were used to deal in a more ordinary kind of ware; and therefore laid down an established rule, which is received as such to this day, "That nothing is capable of being well set to music, that is not nonsense."

This maxim was no sooner received, but we immediately fell to translating the Italian operas; and as there was no great danger of hurting the sense of those extraordinary pieces, our authors would often make words of their own which were entirely foreign to the meaning of the passages they pretended to translate; their chief care being to make the numbers of the English verse to answer to those of the Italian, that both of them might go to the same tune. Thus the famous song in Camilla:

which

Barbara, si, t' intendo, &c.

Barbarous woman, yes, I know your meaning.

expresses the resentments of an angry lover,

was translated into that English lamentation:

Frail are a lover's hopes, &c.

And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined persons of the British nation dying away and languishing to notes that were filled with a spirit of rage and indignation. It happened also very frequently, where the sense was rightly translated, the necessary transposition of words, which were drawn out of the phrase of one tongue into that of another, made the music appear very absurd in one tongue that was very natural in the other. I remember an Italian verse that ran thus, word for word:

And turn'd my rage into pity.

"The worthy president, who is their most devoted champion, has lately shown me two copies of verses, composed by a gentleman of his society; the first, a congratulatory ode, inscribed to Mrs. Touchwood, upon the loss of her two fore teeth; the other, a panegyric upon Mrs. Andiron's left shoulder. Mrs. Vizard (he says), since the small pox, has grown tolerably ugly, and a top toast in the club; but I never heard him so lavish of his fine things, as upon old Nell Trott, who continually officiates at their table; her he even adores and extols as the very counterpart of Mother Shipton; in short, Nell (says he) is one of the extraordinary works of nature; but for complexion, shape, and features, valued by others, they are all mere outside and symmetry, which is his aversion. Give me leave to add, that the president is a facetious pleasant gentleman, and never more so, than when he has got (as he calls them) his dear mummers about him; and he often protests it does him good to meet a fellow with a right genuine grimace in his air (which is so agreeble in the generality of the French nation); and, as an instance of his sincerity in this particular, he gave me a sight of a list in his pocket book of all this class, who for these five years have fallen under dious "the," and have heard the most beautiful his observation, with himself at the head of them, Igraces, quavers, and divisions bestowed upon "then,"

as

SO

which the English for rhyme-sake translated,

And into pity turned my rage.

By this means the soft notes that were adapted to pity in the Italian, fell upon the word rage in the English; and the angry sounds that were turned to rage in the original, were made to express pity in the translation. It oftentimes happened likewise, that the finest notes in the air fell upon the most insignificant words in the sentence. I have known the word "and" pursued through the whole gamut, have been entertained with many a melo"for," and "from;" to the eternal honour of our problematical manner, to be considered by those who English particles.

The next step to our refinement was the intro

are masters in the art.-C.

ducing of Italian actors into our opera; who sang No. 19.] THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1710-11.

their parts in their own language, at the same time that our countrymen performed theirs in our native tongue. The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian, and his slaves answered him in English. The lover frequently made his court, and gained the heart of his princess, in a language which she did not understand. One would have thought it very difficult to have carried on dialogues after this manner, without an interpreter between the persons that conversed together; but this was the state of the English stage for about three years.

Di bene fecerunt, inopis me quodque pusilli
Finxerunt animi, raro et perpauca loquentis.

HOR. 1 Sat. iv. 17.
Thank Heaven, that made me of an humble mind;...
To action little, less to words inclined!

OBSERVING one person behold another, who was an utter stranger to him, with a cast of his eye, which methought expressed an emotion of heart very differ ent from what could be raised by an object so agreeable as the gentleman he looked at, I began to con sider, not without some secret sorrow, the condition. At length the audience grew tired of understand- of an envious man. Some have fancied that envy ing half the opera; and therefore, to ease themselves has a certain magical force in it, and that the eyes of entirely of the fatigue of thinking, have so ordered the envious have, by their fascination, blasted the it at present, that the whole opera is performed in enjoyments of the happy. Sir Francis Bacon says, an unknown tongue. We no longer understand the some have been so curious as to remark the times language of our own stage; insomuch that I have and seasons when the stroke of an envious eye is often been afraid, when I have seen our Italian per- most effectually pernicious, and have observed that it formers chattering in the vehemence of action, that has been when the person envied has been in any they have been calling us names, and abusing us circumstance of glory and triumph. At such a time among themselves; but I hope, since we put such the mind of the prosperous man goes, as it were, an entire confidence in them, they will not talk abroad, among things without him, and is more exagainst us before our faces, though they may do it posed to the malignity. But I shall not dwell upon with the same safety as if it were behind our backs. speculations so abstracted as this, or repeat the many In the mean time, I cannot forbear thinking how na- excellent things which one might collect out of authors turally an historian who writes two or three hundred upon this miserable affection; but keeping the comyears hence, and does not know the taste of his wise mon road of life, consider the envious man with reforefathers, will make the following reflections: "In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Italian tongue was so well understood in England, that operas were acted on the public stage in that language."

One scarce knows how to be serious in the confu tation of an absurdity that shews itself at first sight. It does not want any great measure of sense to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice; but what makes it the more astonishing, it is not the taste of the rabble, but of persons of the greatest politeness, which has established it.

If the Italians have a genius for music above the English, the English have a genius for other performances of a much higher nature, and capable of giving the mind a much nobler entertainment.

lation to these three heads, his pains, his reliefs, and his happiness.

The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion, give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellowcreatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valour, and wisdom, are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him! The condition of the envious man is the most emphatically miserable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in another's merit or success,

Would one think it was possible (at a time when an but lives in a world wherein all mankind are in a author lived that was able to write the Phædra and plot against his quiet, by studying their own happiHippolitus,) for a people to be so stupidly fond of ness and advantage. Will Prosper is an honest the Italian opera, as scarce to give a third day's tale-bearer; he makes it his business to join in conhearing to that admirable tragedy? Music is cer- versation with envious men. He points to such a tainly a very agreeable entertainment: but if it would handsome young fellow, and whispers that he is setake the entire possession of our ears, if it would cretly married to a great fortune. When they doubt, make us incapable of hearing sense, if it would ex- he adds circumstances to prove it; and never fails clude arts that have a much greater tendency to the to aggravate their distress by assuring them, that, to refinement of human nature; I must confess I would his knowledge, he has an uncle will leave him some

allow it no better quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his commonwealth.

At present our notions of music are so very uncertain, that we do not know what it is welike; only, in general, we are transported with any thing that is not English: so it be of a foreign growth, let it be Italian, French, or High Dutch, it is the same thing. In short, our English music is quite rooted out, and nothing yet planted in its stead.

When a royal palace is burnt to the ground, every man is at liberty to present his plan for a new one; and though it be but indifferently put together, it may furnish several hints that may be of use to a good architect. I shall take the same liberty, in a following paper, of giving my opinion upon the sub ject of music; which I shall lay down only in a

thousands. Will has many arts of this kind to torture this sort of temper, and delights in it. When he finds them change colour, and say faintly they wish such a piece of news is true, he has the malice to speak some good or other of every man of their acquaintance.

The reliefs of the envious man, are those little blemishes and imperfections that discover themselves in an illustrious character. It is matter of great consolation to an envious person, when a man of known honour does a thing unworthy of himself, or when any action which was well executed, upon better information appears so altered in its circumstances, that the fame of it is divided among many, instead of being attributed to one. This is a secret satisfaction to these malignants; for the person whom they could not but admire, they fancy is nearer their own condition as soon as his merit is shared among others. I remember some years ago, there came out an excellent poem without the name of the author. The little wits, who were incapable of writing it, began to pull in pieces the supposed writer. When that would not do, they took great pains to suppress the opinion that it was his. That again failed. The next refuge was, to say it was overlooked by one man, and many pages wholly written by another. An honest fellow, who sat amongst a cluster of them in debate on this subject, cried out, "Gentlemen, if you are sure none of you yourselves had

command of herself as befits beauty and innocence, and yet with so much spirit as sufficiently expresses her indignation. The whole transaction is performed with the eyes; and the crime is no less than employing them in such a manner, as to divert the eyes of others from the best use they can make of them, even looking up to heaven.

"SIR,

"There never was (I believe) an acceptable man but had some awkward imitators. Even since the Spectator appeared, have I remarked a kind of men whom I choose to call Starers; that without any regard to time, place, or modesty, disturb a large a hand in it, you are but where you were, whoever company with their impertinent eyes. Spectators writ it." But the most usual succour to the envious, make up a proper assembly for a puppet-show or a in cases of nameless merit in this kind, is to keep bear-garden; but devout supplicants and attentive the property, if possible, unfixed, and by that means hearers are the audience one ought to expect in to hinder the reputation of it from falling upon any churches. I am, Sir, member of a small pious conparticular person. You see an envious man clear gregation near one of the north gates of this city;

up his countenance, if, in the relation of any man's great happiness in one point, you mention his un

easiness in another. When he hears such a one is

very rich, he turns pale, but recovers when you add that he has many children. In a word, the only sure way to an envious man's favour is not to deserve it. But if we consider the envious man in delight, it is like reading of the seat of a giant in romance; the magnificence of his house consists in the many limbs of men whom he has slain. If any who promised themselves success in any uncommon undertaking miscarry in the attempt, or he that aimed at what would have been useful and laudable, meets with contempt and derision, the envious man, under the colour of hating vain-glory, can smile with an inward wantonness of heart at the ill effect it may have upon an honest ambition for the future.

I

Having thoroughly considered the nature of this passion, I have made it my study how to avoid the envy that may accrue to me from these my speculations; and if I am not mistaken in myself, I think have a genius to escape it. Upon hearing in a coffee-house one of my papers commended, I immediately apprehended the envy that would spring from that applause; and therefore gave a description of my face the next day; being resolved, as I grow in reputation for wit, to resign my pretensions to beauty. This, I hope, may give some ease to those unhappy gentlemen who do me the honour to tor

ment themselves upon the account of this my paper. As their case is very deplorable, and deserves compassion, I shall sometimes be dull in pity to them, and will, from time to time, administer consolations to them by farther discoveries of my person. In the meanwhile, if any one says the Spectator has wit, it may be some relief to them to think that he does not show it in company. And if any one praises his morality, they may comfort themselves by considering that his face is none of the longest.-R.

No. 20.] FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1710-11.
Thou dog in forehead.-POPE, HOM.

AMONG the other hardy undertakings which I have proposed to myself, that of the correction of impudence nce is what I have very much at heart. This in a particular manner is my province as Spectator; for it is generally an offence committed by the eyes, and that against such as the offenders would perhaps never have an opportunity of injuring any other way. The following letter is a complaint of a young lady, who sets forth a trespass of this kind, with that

much the greater part of us indeed are females, and used to behave ourselves in a regular attentive manner, till very lately one whole aisle has been disturbed by one of these monstrous starers; he is the head taller than any one in the church; but for the greater advantage of exposing himself, stands upon a hassock, and commands the whole congregation, to the great annoyance of the devoutest part of the auditory: for what with blushing, confusion, and vexation, we can neither mind the prayers nor sermon. Your animadversion upon this insolence would be a great favour to,

"Sir, your most humble servant, S. C."

I have frequently seen this sort of fellows, and do think there cannot be a greater aggravation of an of

fence than that it is committed where the criminal is protected by the sacredness of the place which he violates. Many reflections of this sort might be very justly made upon this kind of behaviour, but a starer is not usually a person to be convinced by the reason of the thing; and a fellow that is capable of showing an impudent front before a whole congregation, and can bear being a public spectacle, is not easily rebuked as to amend by admonitions. If, therefore, my correspondent does not inform me, that within seven days after this date the barbarian does at least stand upon his own legs only, without an eminence, my friend Will Prosper has promised to take a hassock opposite to him, and stare against

so

him in defence of the ladies. I have given him directions, according to the most exact rules of optics, to place himself in such a manner, that he shall meet his eyes wherever he throws them. I have hopes, that when Will confronts him, and all the ladies, in whose behalf he engages him, cast kind looks and wishes of success at their champion, he will have some shame, and feel a little of the pain he has so often put others to, of being out of countenance.

It has, indeed, been time out of mind generally remarked, and as often lamented, that this family of Starers have iufested public assemblies. I know no other way to obviate so great an evil, except, in the case of fixing their eyes upon women, some male friend will take the part of such as are under the oppression of impudence, and encounter the eyes of the Starers wherever they meet them. While we suffer our women to be thus impudently attacked, they have no defence, but in the end to cast yielding glances at the Starers. In this case a man who has no sense of shame, has the same advantage over his

See Spect. No. 19. W. Prosper, an honest tale-bearer, &c.

mistress, as he who has no regard for his own life has over his adversary-While the generality of the world are fettered by rules, and move by proper and just methods, he who has no respect to any of them carries away the reward due to that propriety of behaviour, with no other merit, but that of havang neglected it.

I take an impudent fellow to be a sort of outlaw in good breeding, and therefore what is said of him no nation or person can be concerned for. For this

reckon bishops, deans, and archdeacons. Among the second are doctors of divinity, prebendaries, and all that wear scarfs. The rest are comprehended under the subalterns. As for the first class, our constitution preserves it from any redundancy of incumbents, notwithstanding competitors are numberless. Upon a strict calculation, it is found that there has been a great exceeding of late years in the second division, several brevets having been granted for the converting subalterns into scarf-of

reason one may be free upon him. I have put my-ficers; insomuch, that within my memory the price

self to great pains in considering this prevailing quality, which we call impudence, and have taken notice that it exerts itself in a different manner, according to the different soils wherein such subjects of these dominions as are masters of it were born. Impudence in an Englishman is sullen and insolent; in a Scotchman it is untractable and rapacious; in an Irishman absurd and fawning: as the course of the world now runs, the impudent Englishman behaves like a surly landlord, the Scot like an ill-received guest, and the Irishman like a stranger, who knows he is not welcome. There is seldom any thing entertaining either in the impudence of a South or North Briton; but that of an Irishman is always comic. A true and genuine impudence is ever the effect of ignorance without the least sense of it. The best and most successful starers now in this town are of that nation; they have usually the advantage of the stature mentioned in the above letter of my correspondent, and generally take their stands in the eye of women of fortune: insomuch that I have known one of them, three months after he came from the plough, with a tolerable good air, lead out a woman from a play, which one of our own breed, after four years at Oxford, and two at the Temple, would have been afraid

to look at.

I cannot tell how to account for it, but these people have usually the preference to our own fools, in the opinion of the sillier part of womankind. Perhaps it is that an English coxcomb is seldom so obsequious as an Irish one; and when the design of pleasing is visible, an absurdity in the way towards it is easily forgiven.

But those who are downright impudent, and go on without reflection that they are such, are more to be tolerated, than a set of fellows among us who profess impudence with an air of humour, and think to carry off the most inexcusable of all faults in the world, with no other apology than saying in a gay tone, "I put an impudent face upon the matter." No: no man shall be allowed the advantages of impudence, who is conscious that he is such. If he knows he is impudent, he may as well be otherwise; and it shall be expected that he blush, when he sees he makes another do it. For nothing can atone for the want of modesty: without which beauty is ungraceful, and wit detestable.-R.

No. 21.] SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1710-11.
Locus est et pluribus umbris-HoR. 1 Ep. v. 28.
There's room enough, and each may bring his friend.

CREECH.

of lutestring is raised above two-pence in a yard. As for the subalterns, they are not to be numbered. Should our clergy once enter into the corrupt practice of the laity, by the splitting of their freeholds, they would be able to carry most of the elections in England.

The body of the law is no less encumbered with superfluous members, that are like Virgil's army, which he tells us was so crowded, many of them had not room to use their weapons. This prodigions society of men may be divided into the litigious and peaceable. Under the first are comprehended all those who are carried down in coach-fulls to Westminster-hall, every morning in term time. Martial's description of this species of lawyers is full of humour:

Iras et verba locant.

"Men that hire out their words and anger;" that are more or less passionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their client a quantity of wrath proportionable to the fee which they receive from him. I must, however, observe to the reader, that above three parts of those whom I reckon among the litigious are such as are only quarrelsome in their hearts, and have no opportunity of showing their passion at the bar. Nevertheless, as they do not know what strifes may arise, they appear at the hall every day, that they may show themselves in readiness to enter the lists, whenever there shall be occasion for them.

The peaceable lawyers are, in the first place, many of the benchers of the several inns of court, who seem to be the dignitaries of the law, and are endowed with those qualifications of mind that accomplish a man rather for a ruler than a pleader. These men live peaceably in their habitations, eating once a day, and dancing once a year, for the honour of their respective societies.

Another numberless branch of peaceable lawyers, are those young men who, being placed at the inns of court in order to study the laws of their country, frequent the playhouse more than Westminster-hall, and are seen in all public assemblies except in a court of justice. I shall say nothing of those silent and busy multitudes that are employed within doors in the drawing up of writings and conveyances; nor of those greater numbers that palliate their want of business with a pretence to such chamber practice.

If, in the third place, we look into the profession of physic, we shall find a most formidable body of men. The sight of them is enough to make a man serious, for we may lay it down as a maxim, that when a nation abounds in physicians it grows thin of people. Sir Williaın Temple is very much puzzled to find out a reason why the Northern Hive, as he calls it, does not send out such prodigious swarms, and overrun the world with Goths and Vandals, as it

I AM sometimes very much troubled, when I reflect upon the three great professions of divinity, law, and physic; how they are each of them overburdened with practitioners, and filled with multi-did formerly; but had that excellent author observed tudes of ingenious gentlemen that starve one another. that there were no students in physic among the

We may divide the clergy, into generals, field

officers, and subalterns. Among the first we may

• See Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales.