' are obliged to live under in the university. Our ⚫ constitution runs counter to that of the place wherein we live : for in Love there are no doctors, and we all profefs fo high a paffion, that we admit of no graduates in it. Our prefidentship is bestowed according to the dignity of paffion; our number is unlimited; and our ftatutes are like thofe of the Druids, recorded in our own breafts only, and explained by the majority of the company. A mistress, and a poem in her praife, will introduce any candidate. Without the latter no one can be ad'mitted; for he that is not in love enough to rhyme, is unqualified for our fociety. fpeak difrefpectfully of any woman is expulfion 'from our gentle fociety. As we are at present all of us gownmen, instead of duelling when we are rivals, we drink together the health of our 'miftrefs. The manner of doing this fometimes indeed creates debates; on fuch occa'fions we have recourfe to the rules of Love among the ancients.

Navia fex cyathis, feptem Juftina bibatur.

Το

MART. Epig. i. 72.

Six cups to Naevia, to Juftiņa feven.

'This method of a glass to every letter of her name, occafioned the other night a difpute of ⚫ fome warmth. A young ftudent, who is in 'Love with Mrs. Elizabeth Dimple, was fo unrcasonable as to begin her health under the ' name of Elizabetha; which fo exafperated the • Club,

Club, that by common confent we retrenched it to Betty. We look upon a man as no comthat does not figh five times in a quarter pany of an hour; and look upon a member as very • abfurd, that is so much himself as to make a ⚫ direct answer to a question. In fine, the whole affembly is made up of abfent men, that is, of fuch perfons as have loft their locality, and whofe minds and bodies never keep company with one another. As I am an unfortunate ' member of this distracted fociety, you cannot expect a very regular account of it; for which ' reason I hope you will pardon me that I fo ab'ruptly subscribe myself, 'SIR,

• Your most obedient,
humble fervant,

'T. B.

I forgot to tell you, that Albina, who has fix ' votaries in this Club, is one of your readers.'

R*.

By STEELE. See final Notes to N° 6, and N° 324, on STEELE'S Signatures R and T.

** London: Printed for Sam. Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain; and Sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick Lane; where Advertisements are taken in; as alfo by Charles Lillie, Perfumer, at the Corner of Beauford Buildings in the Strand. SPECT. in folio. Semper.

N° 31.

N° 31. Thursday, April 5, 1711.

Sit mihi fas audita loqui

VIRG. Æn. vi. 266.

What I have heard, permit me to relate.

L

AST night, upon my going into a coffeehouse not far from the Hay-market theatre, I diverted myself for above half an hour with overhearing the difcourfe of one, who, by the fhabbinefs of his dress, the extravagance of his conceptions, and the hurry of his fpeech, I discovered to be of that fpecies who are generally distinguished by the title of Projectors. This gentleman, for I found he was treated as fuch by his audience, was entertaining a whole table of liftners with the project of an opera, which he told us had not coft him above two or three mornings in the contrivance, and which he was ready to put in execution, provided he might find his account in it. He faid, that he had obferved the great trouble and inconvenience which ladies were at, in travelling up and down to the feveral shows that are exhibited in different quarters of the town. The dancing monkies are in one place; the puppet-fhow in another; the opera in a third; not to mention the lions, that are almost a whole day's journey from the politer part of the town. By this means people of figure are forced to lofe half the winter after their coming

to

to town, before they have seen all the strange fights about it. In order to remedy this great inconvenience, our projector drew out of his pocket the fcheme of an opera, intitled, The Expedition of Alexander the Great; in which he had difpofed all the remarkable shows about town, among the fcenes and decorations of his piece. The thought he confeffed, was not originally his own, but that he had taken the hint of it from several performances which he had feen upon our stage: in one of which there was a raree-fhow; in another, a ladder-dance; and in others a posture-man, a moving picture, with many curiofities of the like nature.

* This Expedition of Alexander opens with his confulting the oracle at Delphos, in which the dumb conjuror, who has been visited by so many perfons of quality of late years, is to be introduced as telling his fortune. At the fame time Clinch of Barnet is represented in another corner of the temple, as ringing the bells of Delphos, for joy of his arrival. The tent of Darius is to be peopled by the ingenious Mrs. Salmon, where Alexander is to fall in love with a piece of wax-work, that reprefents the beautiful Statira. When Alexander comes into that country, in which Quintus Curtius tells us the dogs were fo exceeding fierce, that they would not lofe their hold, though they were cut to pieces limb by limb, and that they would hang

*For the illustration of this whole paragraph, fee TATLER, with Notes, No 14, et paffim. See alfo SPECT. N° 36.

VOL. I.

N

upon

upon their prey by their teeth when they had nothing but a mouth left, there is to be a scene of Hockley in the Hole, in which is to be reprefented all the diverfions of that place, the bull-baiting only excepted, which cannot poffibly be exhibited in the theatre, by reason of the lowness of the roof. The feveral woods in Afia, which Alexander must be fuppofed to pafs through, will give the audience a fight of monkies dancing upon ropes, with many other pleafantries of that ludicrous fpecies. At the fame time, if there chance to be any strange animals in town, whether birds or beafts, they may be either let loose among the woods, or driven across the stage by fome of the country people of Asia. In the last great battle, Pinkethman is to perfonate king Porus upon an elephant, and is to be encountered by Powell, reprefenting Alexander the Great, upon a dromedary, which neverthelefs Mr. Powell is defired to call by the name of Bucephalus. Upon the clofe of this great decifive battle, when the two kings are thoroughly reconciled, to fhew the mutual friendship and. good correfpondence that reigns between them, they both of them go together to a puppet-show, in which the ingenious Mr. Powell junior, may have an opportunity of difplaying his whole art of machinery, for the diverfion of the two monarchs. Some at the table urged, that a puppet-fhow was not a fuitable entertainment for Alexander the Great; and that it might be introduced more properly, if we fuppofe the conqueror touched upon that part of India which