To bring these observations to some useful purpose of life, what I would propose should be, that we imitated those wise nations, wherein every man learns some handicraft-work. Would it not employ a beau prettily enough, if, instead of eternally playing with a snuff-box, he spent some part of his time in making one? Such a method as this would very much conduce to the public emolument, by making every man living good for something; for there would then be no one member of human society, but would have some little pretension for some degree in it, like him who came to Will's coffee-house, upon the merit of having writ a posy of a ring.

'My fortune, quality, and person are such, as render me as conspicuous as any young woman in town. It is in my power to enjoy it in all its vanities; but I have, from a very careful education, contracted a great aversion to the forward air and fashion which is practised in all public places and assemblies. I attribute this very much to the style and manner of our plays. I was last night at the Funeral, where a confident lover in the play, speaking of his mistress, cries out-" Oh that Harriot! to fold these arms about the waist of that beauteous, struggling, and at last yielding fair!" Such an image as this ought by no means to be presented to a chaste and regular audience. I expect your opinion of this sentence,

and recommend to your consideration, as a Spectator, the conduct of the stage at present with relation to chastity and modesty. 'I am SIR,

'Your constant reader and well-wisher.'

The complaint of this young lady is so just, that the offence is gross enough to have displeased persons who cannot pretend to that delicacy and modesty of which she is mistress. But there is a great deal to be said in behalf of an author. If the audience would but consider the difficulty of keeping up a sprightly dialogue for five acts together, they would allow a writer, when he wants wit, and can't please any otherwise, to help it out with a little smuttiness. I will answer for the poets, that no one ever writ bawdry for any other reason than dearth of invention. When the author cannot strike out of himself any more of that which he has superior to those who make up the bulk of his audience, his natural recourse is to that which he has in common with them; and a description which gratifies a sensual appetite will please, when the author has nothing about him to delight a refined imagination. It is to such a poverty we must impute this and all other sentences in plays, which are of this kind, and which are commonly termed luscious expressions.

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This expedient to supply the deficiencies of wit has been used more or less by most of the authors who have succeeded on the stage. * * When a poet flags in writing lusciously, a pretty girl can move lasciviously, and have the same good consequence for the author. Dull poets in this case use their audiences, as

dull parasites do their patrons; when they cannot longer divert them with their wit or humour, they bait their ears with something which is agreeable to their temper, though below their understanding. Apicius cannot resist being pleased, if you give him an account of a delicious meal; or Clodius, if you describe a wanton beauty: though at the same time if you do not awake those inclinations in them, no men are better judges of what is just and delicate in conversation. But, as I have before observed, it is easier to talk to the man, than to the man of sense. It is remarkable that the writers of least learning are best skilled in the luscious way. *

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If men of wit, who think fit to write for the stage, instead of this pitiful way of giving delight, would turn their thoughts upon raising it from such good natural impulses as are in the audience, but are choked up by vice and luxury, they would not only please, but befriend us at the same time. If a man had a mind to be new in his way of writing, might not he who is now represented as a fine gentleman, though he betrays the honour and bed of his neighbour and friend, and lies with half the women in the play, and is at last rewarded with her of the best character in it; I say, upon giving the comedy another cast, might not such a one divert the audience quite as well, if at the catastrophe he were found out for a traitor, and met with contempt accordingly? There is seldom a person devoted to above one darling vice at a time; so that there is room enough to catch at men's hearts to their good and advantage, if the poets will attempt it with the honesty which becomes their characters.

There is no man who loves his bottle or his mistress, in a manner so very abandoned, as not to be capable of relishing an agreeable character, that is no way a slave to either of those pursuits. A man that is temperate, generous, valiant, chaste, faithful, and honest, may, at the same time, have wit, humour, mirth, good-breeding, and gallantry. While he exerts these latter qualities, twenty occasions might be invented to show that he is master of the other noble virtues. Such characters would smite and reprove the heart of a man of sense, when he is given up to his pleasures. He would see he has been mistaken all this while, and be convinced that a sound constitution and an innocent mind are the true ingredients for becoming and enjoying life. All men of true taste would call a man of wit, who should turn his ambition this way, a friend and benefactor to his country; but I am at a loss what name they would give him who makes use of his capacity for contrary purposes.

TUESDAY, May 1, 1711.

My correspondents grow so numerous, that I cannot avoid frequently inserting their applications to me.

6 MR. SPECTATOR,

'I AM glad I can inform you, that your endeavours to adorn that sex, which is the fairest part of the visible creation, are well received, and like to prove not unsuc

cessful. The triumph of Daphne over her sister Lætitia,* has been the subject of conversation at several tea-tables where I have been present; and I have observed the fair circle not a little pleased to find you considering them as reasonable creatures, and endeavouring to banish that Mahometan custom, which had too much prevailed even in this island, of treating women as if they had no souls. I must do them the justice to say, that there seems to be nothing wanting to the finishing of these lovely pieces of human nature, besides the turning and applying their ambition properly, and the keeping them up to a sense of what is their true merit. Epictetus, that plain honest philosopher, as little as he had of gallantry, appears to have understood them, as well as the polite St. Evremont, and has hit this point very luckily. "When young women," says he, "arrive at a certain age, they hear themselves called mistresses, and are made to believe, that their only business is to please the men ; they immediately begin to dress, and place all their hopes. in the adorning of their persons; it is therefore," continues he, "worth the while to endeavour by all means to make them sensible, that the honour paid to them is only upon account of their conducting themselves with virtue, modesty, and discretion."

'Now to pursue the matter yet farther, and to render your cares for the improvement of the fair ones more effectual, I would propose a new method like those applications which are said to convey their virtue by sympa

*This refers to the relation in a previous paper.