a piece of good-breeding and distinction to deny herself with her own mouth. Mrs. Comma, the great scholar', insists upon it, and I myself have heard her assert, that a lord's porter, or a lady's woman, cannot be said to lie in that case, because they act by instruction; and their words are no more their own, than those of a puppet.' He was going on with his ribaldry, when on a sudden he looked on his watch, and said, he had twenty visits to make, and drove away without further cere We are told, by Ballard, in his "Memoirs of British Ladies," that when Mrs. Mary Astell had accidentally seen needless visitors coming, whom she knew to be incapable of discoursing upon any useful subject, but came for the sake of chat and tattle, she would look out of the window, and jestingly tell them [as Cato did Nasica] "Mrs. Astell is not at home;" and in good earnest keep them out, not suffering such triflers to make inroads upon her more serious hours.' Mrs. Astell was born at Newcastle upon Tyne about the year 1688. Her uncle, a clergyman, observing marks of a promising genius, took her under his tuition, and taught her mathematics, logic, and philosophy. She left the place of her nativity when she was about twenty years of age, and spent the remaining part of her life at London and Chelsea, in writing for the advancement of learning, religion, and virtue, and in the practice of those religious duties which she so zealously and pathetically recommended to others; and in which, perhaps, no one was ever more sincere and devout. Some very great men bear testimony to the merit of her works; such as Atterbury, Hickes, Walker, Norris, Dodwell, and Evelyn.-She was remarkably abstemious; and seemed to enjoy an uninterrupted state of health till a few years before her death; when having one of her breasts cut off, it so much impaired her constitution, that she died in 1731, in the 43d year of her age, and was buried at Chelsea. mony. I was then at leisure to reflect upon the tasteless manner of life, which a set of idle fellows lead in this town, and spend youth itself with less spirit, than other men do their old age. These expletives in human society, though they are in themselves wholly insignificant, become of some consideration when they are mixed with others. I am very much at a loss how to define, or under what character, distinction, or denomination, to place them; except you give me leave to call them the order of the Insipids. This order is in its extent like that of the Jesuits; and you see of them in every way of life, and in every profession. Tom Modely has long appeared to me at the head of this species. By being habitually in the best company, he knows perfectly well when a coat is well cut, or a perriwig well mounted. As soon as you enter the place where he is, he tells the next man to him who is your taylor, and judges of you more from the choice of your perriwig-maker than of your friend. His business in this world is to be well dressed; and the greatest circumstance that is to be recorded in his annals is, that he wears twenty shirts a week. Thus, without ever speaking reason among the men, or passion among the women, he is every where well received; and without any one man's esteem, he has every man's indulgence. This order has produced great numbers of tolerable copiers in painting, good rhymers in poetry, and harmless projectors in politics. You may see them at first sight grow acquainted by sympathy; insomuch, that one who had not studied nature, and did not know the true cause of their sudden familiarities, would think that they had some secret intimation of each other, like the Free-masons. The other day at Will's I heard Modely, and a critic of the same order, shew their equal talents with great delight. The learned Insipid was commending Racine's turns; the genteel Insipid, Devillier's curls. These creatures, when they are not forced into any particular employment for want of ideas in their own imaginations, are the constant plague of all they meet with, by inquiries for news and scandal, which makes them the heroes of visiting-days; where they help the design of the meeting, which is to pass away that odious thing called time, in discourses too trivial to raise any reflections which may put well-bred persons to the trouble of thinking. From my own Apartment, May 1. I was looking out of my parlour window this morning, and receiving the honours which Margery, the milk-maid to our lane, was doing me, by dancing be fore my door with the plate of half her customers on her head, when Mr. Clayton, the author of Arsinoë, made me a visit, and desired me to insert the following advertisement in my ensuing paper. The pastoral masque, composed by Mr. Clayton, author of Arsinoë, will be performed on Wednesday, the third instant, in the great room at York-buildings, Tickets to be had at White's Chocolate-house, St. James's coffee-house in St. James's-street, and Young Man's coffee-house. Note; the tickets delivered out for the twentyseventh of April will be then taken.' When I granted his request, I made one to him, which was, that the performers should put their instruments in tune before the audience came in; for that I thought the resentment of the Eastern prince, who, according to the old story, took tuning for playing, to be very just and natural. He was so civil, as not only to promise that favour; but also to assure me, that he would order the heels of the performers to be muffled in cotton, that the artists, in so polite an age as ours, may not intermix with their harmony a custom which so nearly resembles the stampingdances of the West Indians or Hottentots. ADVERTISEMENTS. A Bass-viol of Mr. Bickerstaff's acquaintance, whose mind and fortune do not very exactly agree, proposes to set himself to sale by way of lottery. Ten thousand pounds is the sum to be raised, at threepence a ticket, in consideration that there are more women who are willing to be married, than that can spare a greater sum. He has already made over his person to trustees for the said money to be forth-coming, and ready to take to wife the fortunate woman that wins him, "N. B. Tickets are given out by Mr. Charles Lillie, and by Mr. John Morphew. Each adventurer must be a virgin, and subscribe her name to her ticket?' Whereas the several churchwardens of most of the parishes within the bills of mortality have in an, earnest manner applied themselves by way of petition, and have also made a presentment of the vain and loose deportment, during divine service, of persons of too great figure in all their said parishes for their reproof: and whereas it is therein set forth, that by salutations given each other, hints, shrugs, ogles, playing of fans, fooling with canes at their mouths, and other wanton gesticulations, their whole congre I See N° 168. gation appears rather a theatrical audience, than an house of devotion; it is hereby ordered, that all canes, cravats, bosom-laces, muffs, fans, snuff-boxes, and all other instruments made use of to give persons unbecoming airs, shall be immediately forfeited and sold; and of the sum arising from the sale thereof, a ninth part shall be paid to the poor, and the rest to the overseers.' STEELE. N° 167. THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1710. Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, Quam quæ sunt oculis submissa fidelibus. HOR. Ars Poet. 180. What we hear, With weaker passion will affect the heart, FRANCIS. From my own Apartment, May 2. HAVING received notice, that the famous actor Mr. Betterton' was to be interred this evening in the cloysters near Westminster-abbey, I was resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done to a man whom I had always very much admired, and from whose action I had received more strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the most charming poets I had ever read. As the rude and untaught multitude are no way wrought upon more effectually, than by seeing public punish See N° 1, 71, 157. |