maintain them without work, they can do! This account is very dry in many parts, no less in return than sing us“ The merry as only mentioning the name of the lover Beggars.

who leaped, the person he leaped for, and What then? Am I against all acts of relating in short, that he was either cured, charity? God forbid! I know of no virtue or killed, or maimed by the fall. It indeed in the gospel that is in more pathetic ex- gives the names of so many who died by it, pressions recommended to our practice. “Ithat it would have looked like a bill of morwas hungry and ye gave me no meat, tality, had I translated it at full length; I thirsty and ye gave me no drink, naked and have therefore made an abridgment of it, ye clothed me not, a stranger and ye took and only extracted such particular pasme not in, sick and in prison and ye visited sages as have something extraordinary, me not.” Our blessed Saviour treats the either in the case or in the cure, or in the exercise or neglect of charity towards a fate of the person who is mentioned in it. poor man, as the performance or breach of After this short preface take the account this duty towards himself. I shall endea-as, follows: vour to obey the will of my lord and master: Battus, the son of Menalcas the Sicilian, and therefore if an industrious man shall leaped for Bombyca the musician: got rid submit to the hardest labour and coarsest of his passion with the loss of his right leg fare, rather than endure the shame of and arm, which were broken in the fall. taking relief from the parish, or asking it Melissa, in love with Daphnis, very in the street, that is the hungry, the thirsty, much bruised, but escaped with life. the naked; and I ought to believe, if any Cynisca, the wife of Æschines, being in man is come hither for shelter against per- love with Lycus; and Æschines her hussecution or oppression, this is the stranger, band being in love with Eurilla; (which had and I ought to take him in. If any country- made this married couple very uneasy to man of our own is fallen into the hands of one another for several years) both the infidels, and lives in a state of miserable husband and the wife took the leap by concaptivity, this is the man in prison, and I sent; they both of them escaped, and have should contribute to his ransom. I ought lived very happily together ever since. to give to an hospital of invalids, to recover Larissa, a virgin of Thessaly, deserted as many useful subjects as I can: but I shall by Plexippus, after a courtship of three bestow none of my bounties upon an alms- years; she stood upon the brow of the prohouse of idle people; and for the same rea- montory for some time, and after having son I should not think a reproach to me thrown down a ring, a bracelet, and a little if I had withheld my charity from those picture, with other presents which she had common beggars. But we prescribe better received from Plexippus, she threw herrules than we are able to practise; we are self into the sea, and was taken up alive. ashamed not to give into the mistaken man- N. B. Larissa before she leaped made ners of our country: but at the same time, an offering of a silver Cupid in the temple I cannot but think it a reproach worse than of Apollo. that of common swearing, that the idle and Simætha, in love with Daphnis the Mynthe abandoned are suffered in the name of dian; perished in the fall. heaven and all that is sacred to extort from Charixus, the brother of Sappho, in love christian and tender minds a supply to a with Rhodope the courtesan, having spent profligate way of life, that is always to be his whole estate upon her, was advised by supported, but never relieved.' Z. his sister to leap in the beginning of his

amour, but would not hearken to her until

he was reduced to his last talent; being forNo. 233.] Tuesday, November 27, 1711. saken by Rhodope, at length resolved to

-Tanquam hæc sint nostri medicina furoris take the leap. Perished in it. Aut deus ille malis hominum mitescere discat.

Aridæus, a beautiful youth of Epirus, in Virg. Ecl. x. V. 60.

love with Praxinoe, the wife of Thespis; As if by these, my sufferings I could ease;

escaped without damage, saving only that Or by my pains the god of love appease.--Dryden.

two of his fore-teeth were struck out and I SHALL in this paper discharge myself his nose a little flatted. of the promise I have made to the public, Cleora, a widow of Ephesus, being inby obliging them with a translation of the consolable for the death of her husband, little Greek manuscript, which is said to was resolved to take this leap in order to have been a piece of those records that get rid of her passion for his memory; but were preserved in the temple of Apollo, being arrived at the promontory, she there upon the promontory of Leucate. It is a met with Dimachus the Milesian, and after short history of the Lover's Leap, and is a short conversation with him, laid aside inscribed, "An account of persons, male the thoughts of her leap, and married him and female, who offered up their vows in in the temple of Apollo. the temple of the Pythian Apollo in the N. B. Her widow's weeds are still seen forty-sixth Olympiad, and leaped from the hanging up in the western corner of the promontory of Leucate into the Ionian Sea, temple. in order to cure themselves of the passion Olphis, the fisherman, having received a of love.'

box on the ear from Thestylis the day ber

Vellem in amicitia sic erraremus.

Hor. Lib. 1. Sat. iii. 41.

Creech.

fore, and being determined to have no more Sappho, arrived at the promontory of Leuto do with her, leaped, and escaped with cate that very evening, in order to take the life.

leap upon her account: but hearing that Atalanta, an old maid, whose cruelty had Sappho had been there before him, and several years before driven two or three that her body could be no where found, he despairing lovers to this leap; being now in very generously lamented her fall, and is the fifty-fifth year of her age, and in love said to have written his hundred and twenwith an officer of Sparta, broke her neck in ty-fifth ode upon that occasion. the fall.

Leaped in this Olympiad. Hipparchus, being passionately fond of

Males

124 his own wife, who was enamoured of Bathyllus, leaped, and died of his fall; upon

Females

126 which his wife married her gallant.

250 Tettyx, the dancing-master, in love with

Cured. Olympia, an Athenian matron, threw himself from the rock with great agility, but Males

51 was crippled in the fall.

Females

69 Diagoras, the usurer, in love with his cook-maid; he peeped several times over C.

120 the precipice: but his heart misgiving him, he went back and married her that evening: No. 234.] Wednesday, November 28, 1711.

Cinædus, after having entered his own name in the Pythian records, being asked the name of the person whom he leaped for, and being ashamed to discover it, he was I wish this error in your friendship reign'd. set aside, and not suffered to leap.

Eunicia, a maid of Paphos, aged nine- You very often hear people, after a story teen, in love with Eurybates. Hurt in the has been told with some entertaining cirfall but recovered.

cumstances, tell it over again with parN. B. This was the second time of her ticulars that destroy the jest, but give light leaping.

into the truth of the narration. This sort Hesperus, a young man of Tarentum, in of veracity, though it is impertinent, has love with his master's daughter. Drowned, something amiable in it, because it prothe boats not coming in soon enough to his ceeds from the love of truth even in frivorelief.

lous occasions. If such honest amendments Sappho the Lesbian, in love with Phaon, do not promise an agreeable companion, arrived at the temple of Apollo habited like they do a sincere friend; for which reason a bride in garments as white as snow. She one should allow them so much of our time, wore a garland of myrtle on her head, and if we fall into their company, as to set us carried in her hand the little musical in- right in matters that can do us no manner strument of her own invention. After hav- of harm, whether the facts be one way or ing sung an hymn to Apollo, she hung up the other. Lies which are told out of arroher garland on one side of his altar, and her gance and ostentation, a man should deharp on the other. She then tucked up her tect in his own defence, because he should vestments like a Spartan virgin, and amidst not be triumphed over.

Lies which are thousands of spectators, who were anxious told out of malice he should expose, both for her safety, and offered up vows for her for his own sake and that of the rest of deliverance, marched directly forwards to mankind, because every man should rise the utmost summit of the promontory, against a common enemy: but the officious where after having repeated a stanza of liar, many have argued, is to be excused, her own verses, which we could not hear, because it does some man good, and no man she threw herself off the rock with such an hurt. The man who made more than orintrepidity as was never before observed in dinary speed from a fight in which the any who had attempted that dangerous Athenians were beaten, and told them they leap. Many who were present related, that had obtained a complete victory, and put they saw her fall into the sea, from whence the whole city into the utmost joy and exshe never rose again; though there were ultation, was checked by the magistrates others who affirmed that she never came to for this falsehood; but excused himself by the bottom of her leap, but that she was saying, 'O Athenians! am I your enemy changed into a swan as she fell, and that because I gave you two happy days?' This they saw her hovering in the air under that fellow did to a whole people what an acshape. But whether or no the whiteness quaintance of mine does every day he lives, and fluttering of her garments might not in some eminent degree, to particular perdeceive those who looked upon her, or sons. He is ever lying people into good whether she might not really be metamor- humour, and as Plato said it was allowable phosed into that musical and melancholy in physicians to lie to their patients to keep bird, is still a doubt among the Lesbians. up their spirits, I am half doubtful whether

Alcæus, the famous lyric poet, who had my friend's behaviour is not as excusable. for some time been passionately in love with | His manner is to express himself surprised

at the cheerful countenance of a man whom hood two days ago one of your gay gentlemen he observes diffident of himself; and gene- of the town, who being attended at his entry rally by that means make his lie a truth. with a servant of his own, besides a counHe will, as if he did not know any thing of tryman he had taken up for a guide, exthe circumstance, ask one whom he knows cited the curiosity of the village to learn at variance with another, what is the mean- whence and what he might be. The couning that Mr. Such-a-one, naming his ad- tryman (to whom they applied as most versary, does not applaud him with that easy of access) knew little more than that heartiness which formerly he has heard the gentleman came from London to travel him? 'He said, indeed,' continues he, 'I and see fashions, and was, as he heard say, would rather have that man for my friend a free-thinker. What religion that might than any man in England; but for an ene- be, he could not tell: and for his own part, my!—'This melts the person he talks if they had not told him the man was a to, who expected nothing but downwright free-thinker, he should have guessed, by raillery from that side. According as he his way of talking, he was little better sees his practice succeed, he goes to the than a heathen; excepting only that he had opposite party, and tells him, he cannot been a good gentleman to him, and made imagine how it happens that some people him drunk twice in one day, over and above know one another so little; .You spoke what they had bargained for. with so much coldness of a gentleman who I do not look upon the simplicity of this, said more good of you, than, let me tell and several odd inquiries with which I shall you, any man living deserves.' The suc- not trouble you, to be wondered at, much cess of one of these incidents was, that the less can I think that our youths of fine next time one of the adversaries spied the wit, and enlarged understandings, have any other, he hems after him in the public reason to laugh. There is no necessity street, and they must crack a bottle at the that every 'squire in Great Britain should next tavern, that used to turn out of the know what the word free-thinker stands for; other's way to avoid one another's eye- but it were much to be wished, that they shot. He will tell one beauty she was com- who value themselves upon that conceited mended by another, nay, he will say she title, were a little better instructed in what gave the woman he speaks to, the prefer- it ought to stand for; and that they would rence in a particular for which she herself not persuade themselves a man is really is admired. The pleasantest confusion ima- and truly a free-thinker, in any tolerable ginable is made through the whole town by sense, merely by virtue of his being an my friend's indirect offices. You shall have atheist, or an infidel of any other distinca visit returned after half a year's absence, tion. It may be doubted with good reason, and mutual railing at each other every whether there ever was in nature a more abday of that time.-They meet with a thou- ject, slavish, and bigoted generation than sand lamentations for so long a separation, the tribe of beaux-esprits, at present so each party naming herself for the greatest prevailing in this island. Their pretension delinquent, if the other can possibly be so to be free-thinkers, is no other than rakes good as to forgive her, which she has no have to be free-livers, and savages to be reason in the world, but from the know- free-men; that is, they can think whatever ledge of her goodness, to hope for. Very they have a mind to, and give themselves often a whole train of railers of each side up to whatever conceit the extravagancy tire their horses in setting matters right of their inclination, or their fancy, shall which they have said during the war be- suggest; they can think as wildly as they tween the parties; and a whole circle of talk and act, and will not endure that their acquaintances are put into a thousand wit should be controlled by such formal pleasing passions and sentiments, instead of things as decency and common sense. Dethe pangs of anger, envy, detraction, and duction, coherence, consistency, and all the malice.

rules of reason they accordingly disdain, as The worst evil I ever observed this man's too precise and mechanical for men of a falsehood occasion, has been, that he turned liberal education. detraction into flattery. He is well skilled This as far as I could ever learn from in the manners of the world, and by over their writings, or my own observation, is a looking what men really are, he grounds true account of the British free-thinker. his artifices upon what they have a mind Our visitant here, who gave occasion to to be. Upon this foundation, if two distant this paper, has brought with him a new friends are brought together and the cement system of common sense, the particulars seems to be weak, he never rests until of which I am not yet acquainted with, but he finds new appearances to take off all will lose no opportunity of informing myremains of ill-will, and that by new mis- self whether it contains any thing worth understandings they are thoroughly recon- Mr. Spectator's notice. In the mean time, ciled.

sir, I cannot but think it would be for the • To the Spectator.

good of mankind, if you would take this

subject into your consideration, and con'Devonshire, Nov. 14, 1711.

vince the hopeful youth of our nation, that “SIR, -There arrived in this neighbour-licentiousness is not freedom; or, if such a

Hor. Are Poet, v. 81.

Roscommon.

paradox will not be understood, that a pre- timed that the most judicious critic could judice towards atheism is not impartiality. never except against it. As soon as any I am, sir, your most humble servant, shining thought is expressed in the poet, or T. • PHILONOUS.' any uncommon grace appears in the actor,

he smites the bench or the wainscot. If

the audience does not concur with him, he No. 235.] Thursday, November 29, 1711. smites a second time: and if the audience

is not yet awakened, looks round him with - Populares

great wrath, and repeats the blow a third Vincentem strepitus

time, which never fails to produce the clap.

He sometimes lets the audience begin the Awes the tumultuous noises of the pit.

clap of themselves, and at the conclusion

of their applause ratifies it with a single There is nothing which lies more with thwack. in the province of a Spectator than public He is of so great use to the play-house, shows and diversions; and as among these that it is said, a former director of it, upon there are none which can pretend to vie his not being

able to pay his attendance by with those elegant entertainments that are reason of sickness, kept one in pay to offexhibited in our theatres, I think it parti- ciate for him until such time as he recovercularly incumbent on me to take notice of ed; but the person so employed, though he every thing that is remarkable in such nu- laid about him with incredible violence, merous and refined assemblies.

did it in such wrong places, that the audiIt is observed, that of late years there has ence soon found out that it was not their been a certain person in the upper gallery old friend the trunk-maker. of the playhouse, who when he is pleased It has been remarked, that he has not with any thing that is acted upon the stage, yet exerted himself with vigour this seaexpresses his approbation by a loud knock son. He sometimes plies at the opera; and upon the benches or the wainscot, which upon Nicolini's first appearance was said to may be heard over the whole theatre. The have demolished three benches in the fury person is commonly known by the name of of his applause. He has broken half a the Trunk-maker in the upper gallery.' dozen oaken plants upon Dogget, * and selWhether it be that the blow he gives on dom goes away from a tragedy of Shakthese occasions resembles that which is speare, without leaving the wainscot exoften heard in the shops of such artisans, tremely shattered. or that he was supposed to have been a real The players do not only connive at his trunk-maker, who, after the finishing of obstreperous approbation, but very cheerhis day's work, used to unbend his mind at fully repair at their own cost whatever these public diversions with his hammer in damages he makes. They once had a his hand, I cannot certainly tell. There thought of erecting a kind of wooden anvil are some, I know, who have been foolish for his use, that should be made of a very enough to imagine it is a spirit which sounding plank, in order to render his haunts the upper gallery, and from time strokes more deep and mellow; but as this to time makes those strange noises; and the might not have been distinguished from the rather, because he is observed to be louder music of a kettle-drum, the project was laid than ordinary every time the ghost of aside. Hamlet appears. Others have reported, In the meanwhile, I cannot but take nothat, it is a dumb man, who has chosen tice of the great use it is to an audience, this way of uttering himself when he is that a person should thus preside over their transported with any thing he sees or heads like the director of a concert, in orhears. Others will have it to be the play- der to awaken their attention, and beat time house thunderer, that exerts himself after to their applauses; or, to raise my simile, I this manner in the upper gallery when he have sometimes fancied the trunk-maker has nothing to do upon the roof.

in the upper gallery to be like Virgil's But having made it my business to get ruler of the winds, seated upon the top of a the best information I could in a matter of mountain, who when he struck his sceptre this moment, I find that the trunk-maker, upon the side of it, roused a hurricane, and as he is commonly called, is a large black set the whole cavern in an uproar. inan, whom nobody knows. He generally It is certain the trunk-maker has saved leans forward on a huge oaken plant with many a good play, and brought inany a great attention to every thing that passes graceful actor into reputation, who would upon the stage. He never is seen to smile, not otherwise have been taken notice of. It but upon hearing any thing, that pleases is very visible, as the audience is not a little him, he takes up his staff with both hands, and lays it upon the next piece of timber

* Thomas Dogget, a celebrated comic actor, many that stands in his way with exceeding ve-in 1721, leaving a legacy to provide a coat and badge

abashed, if they find themselves betrayed | dispositions are strangely averse to conjugal into a clap, when their friend in the upper friendship), but no one, I believe, is by his gallery does not come into it; so the actors own natural complexion prompted to tease do not value themselves upon the clap, but and torment another for no reason but being regard it as a mere brutum fulmen, or nearly allied to him. And can there be any empty noise, when it has not the sound of thing more base, or serve to sink a man so the oaken plant in it. I know it has been much below his own distinguishing characgiven out by those who are enemies to the teristic, (I mean reason,) than returning evil trunk-maker, that he has sometimes been for good in so open a manner, as that of bribed to be in the interest of a bad poet, or treating a helpless creature with unkinda vicious player; but this is a surmise which ness, who has had so good an opinion of has no foundation: his strokes are always him as to believe what he said relating to just, and his admonitions seasonable; he one of the greatest concerns of life, by dedoes not deal about his blows at random, livering her happiness in this world to his but always hits the right nail upon the head. care and protection? Must not that man be The inexpressible force wherewith he lays abandoned even to all manner of humanity, them on sufficiently shows the evidence and who can deceive a woman with appearances strength of his conviction. His zeal for a of affection and kindness, for no other end good author is indeed outrageous, and breaks but to torment her with more ease and audown every fence and partition, every board thority? Is any thing more unlike a gentleand plank, that stands within the expres- man than when his honour is engaged for sion of his applause.

the performing his promises, because noAs I do not care for terminating my thing but that can oblige him to it, to bethoughts in barren speculations, or in re- come afterwards false to his word, and be ports of pure matter of fact, without draw-alone the occasion of misery to one whose ing something from them for the advantage happiness he but lately pretended was of my countrymen, I shall take the liberty dearer to him than his own? Ought such a to make an humble proposal, that when one to be trusted in his common affairs? or ever the trunk-maker shall depart this life, treated but as one whose honesty consisted or whenever he shall have lost the spring only in his incapacity of being otherwise ? of his arm by sickness, old age, infirmity,

“There is one cause of this usage no less or the like, some able-bodied critic should absurd than common, which takes place be advanced to this post, and have a com- among the more unthinking men; and that petent salary settled on him for life, to be is, the desire to appear to their friends free furnished with bamboos for operas, crab- and at liberty, and without those trammels tree cudgels for comedies, and oaken plants they have so much ridiculed. To avoid this for tragedy, at the public expense. And to they fly into the other extreme, and grow the end that this place should be always tyrants that they may seem masters. Bedisposed of according to merit, I would have cause an uncontrollable command of their none preferred to it, who has not given con- own actions is a certain sign of entire domivincing proofs both of a sound judgment, nion, they will not so much as recede from and a strong arm, and who could not, upon the government even in one muscle of their occasion, either knock down an ox, or write faces. A kind look they believe would be a comment upon Horace's Art of Poetry: fawning, and a civil answer yielding the In short, I would have him a due composi- superiority. To this we must attribute an tion of Hercules and Apollo, and so rightly austerity they betray in every action. What qualified for this important office, that the but this can put a man out of humour in his trunk-maker may not be missed by our wife's company, though he is so dintinguishposterity.

C. ingly pleasant every where else? The bit

terness of his replies, and the severity of

his frowns to the tenderest of wives, clearly No. 236.] Friday, November 30, 1711. demonstrate that an ill-grounded fear of

being thought too submissive, is at the bot-Dare jura maritis.--Hor. Ars Poct. v. 398.

tom of this, as I am willing to call it, affected With laws connubial tyrants to restrain.

moroseness; but if it be such, only put on to 'MR. SPECTATOR,—You have not spoken convince his acquaintance of his entire doin so direct a manner upon the subject of minion, let him take care of the consemarriage, as that important case deserves. quence, which will be certain and worse It would not be improper to observe upon than the present evil; his seeming indifferthe peculiarity in the youth of Great Britain ence will by degrees grow into real conof railing and laughing at that institution; tempt, and if it doth not wholly alienate the and when they fall into it, from a profligate affections of his wife for ever from him, habit of mind, being insensible of the satis- make both him and her more miserable faction in that way of life, and treating their than if it really did so. wives with the most barbarous disrespect.

• However inconsistent it may appear, to •Particular circumstances, and cast of be thought a well-bred person has no small temper, must teach a man the probability share in this clownish behaviour. A disof mighty uneasiness in that state; (for un- course therefore relating to good-breeding questionably some there are whose very towards a loving and a tender wife, would