tend to extirpate the French mufic, and plant the Italian in its ftead; but only to cultivate and civilize it with innumerable graces and modulations which he borrowed from the Italians. By this means the French mufic is now perfect in its kind; and when you fay it is not fo good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not please you fo well; for there is scarce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian fuch a preference. The mufic of the French is indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as their whole opera wonderfully favours the genius of fuch a gay airy people. The Chorus in which that opera abounds, gives the parterre frequent opportunities of joining in confort with the stage. This inclination of the audience to fing along with the actors, so prevails with them, that I have fometimes known the performer on the stage do no more in a celebrated fong, than the clerk of a parish-church, who ferves only to raise the pfalm, and is afterwards drowned in the music of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the stage is a beau. The queens and heroines are so painted, that they appear as ruddy and cherry-cheeked as milk-maids. The shepherds are all embroidered, and acquit themselves in a ball better than our English dancing - mafters. I have seen a couple of rivers appear in red stockings; and Alpheus, inftead of having his head covered with fedge and bull-rushes, making love in a fair full-bottomed periwig, and a *These means. + See N° 13, Note, p. 80. Concert. plume plume of feathers; but with a voice fo full of hakes and quavers, that I should have thought the murmurs of a country - brook the much more agreeable mufic. I remember the laft opera I faw in that merry nation was the rape of Proferpine, where Pluto, to make the more tempting figure, puts himself in a French equipage, and brings Afcalaphus along with him as his Valet de Chambre. This is what we call folly and impertinence; but what the French look upon as gay and polite. I thall add no more to what I have here offered, than that mufic, architecture, and painting, as well as poetry, and oratory, are to deduce their laws and rules from the general fenfe and taste of mankind, and not from the principles of thofe arts themselves; or in other words, the tafte is not to conform to the art, but the art to the tafte. Mufic is not defigned to pleafe only chromatic ears, but all that are capable of diftinguishing harth from difagreeable notes. man of an ordinary ear is a judge whether a paffion is expreffed in proper founds, and whether the melody of those founds be more or less pleasing. A C* By ADDISON, Chelsea. See final Note to N° 7, on ADDISON'S Signatures C, L, I, O; N° 221 on the fame subject, and Notes ibidem. ** Compleat Setts of this Paper for the Month of March, are fold by Mr. Graves in St. James's Street; Mr. Lillie, Perfumer, the Corner of Beaufort Buildings, Meflrs. Sanger, Knapton, Round, and Mrs. Baldwin. SPECT. in folio. N° 30. N° 30. Wednesday, April 4, 1711. Si, Mimnermus uti cenfet, fine amore jocifque HOR. I Ep. vi. 65. If nothing, as Mimnermus ftrives to prove, CREECH. NE common calamity makes men extremely affect each other, though they differ in every other particular. The paffion of LOVE is the moft general concern among men; and I am glad to hear by my last advices from Oxford, that there are a fet of fighers in that univerfity, who have erected themselves into a fociety in honour of that tender paffion. These gentlemen are of that fort of inamoratos, who are not fo very much loft to common fenfe, but that they understand the folly they are guilty of; and for that reafon feparate themselves from all other company, because they will enjoy the pleafure of talking incoherently, without being ridiculous to any but each other. When a man comes into the Club, he is not obliged to make any introduction to his difcourfe, but at once, as he is feating himself in his chair, speaks in the thread of his own thoughts, She gave me ' a very obliging glance, fhe never looked fo well in her life as this evening;' or the like reflec tion, without regard to any other member of the fociety; for in this affembly they do not meet to talk to each other, but every man claims the full liberty of talking to himself. Instead of fnuff-boxes and canes, which are the ufual helps to discourse with other young fellows, these have each fome piece of ribbon, a broken fan, or an old girdle, which they play with while they talk of the fair perfon remembered by each respective token. According to the reprefentation of the matter from my letters, the company appear like fo many players rehearsing behind the scenes; one is fighing and lamenting his deftiny in befeeching terms, another declaring he will break his chain, and another in dumbfhow, striving to express his paffion by his gefture. It is very ordinary in the affembly for one of á fudden to rife and make a difcourfe concerning his paffion in general, and describe the temper of his mind in fuch a manner, as that the whole company fhall join in the defcription, and feel the force of it. In this cafe, if any man has declared the violence of his flame in more pathetic terms, he is made prefident for that night, out of respect to his fuperior paffion. We had fome years ago in this town a set of people who met and dreffed like Lovers, and were diftinguished by the name of the Fringe-glove CLUB; but they were perfons of fuch moderate intellects, even before they were impaired by their paffion, that their irregularities could not furnish sufficient variety of folly to afford daily new impertinences; by which means that in ftitution stitution dropped. These fellows could express their paffion in nothing but their dress; but the Oxonians are fantastical now they are Lovers, in proportion to their learning and understanding before they became fuch. The thoughts of the ancient poets on this agreeable phrenzy, are tranflated in honour of fome modern beauty; and Chloris is won to day by the fame compliment that was made to Lesbia a thousand years ago. But as far as I can learn, the patron of the Club is the renowned Don Quixote. The adventures of that gentle knight are frequently mentioned in the fociety, under the colour of laughing at the paffion and themselves: but at the fame time, though they are fenfible of the extravagancies of that unhappy warrior, they do not observe, that to turn all the reading of the best and wifeft writings into rhapfodies of Love, is a phrenzy no less diverting than that of the aforefaid accomplished Spaniard. A gentleman who, I hope, will continue his correfpondence, is lately admitted into the fraternity, and fent me the following letter. 'SIR, SIN INCE I find you take notice of Clubs, I beg leave to give you an account of one in Oxford, which you have no where mentioned, and perhaps never heard of. We diftinguish ourselves by the title of The Amorous 'Club, are all votaries of Cupid, and admirers of the fair fex. The reason that we are fo little 'known in the world, is the fecrecy which we ' are |