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... Neque semper arcumTendit Apollo.Hor.translation
I shall here present my Reader with a Letter from a Projector, concerning a new Office which he thinks may very much contribute to the Embellishment of the City, and to the driving Barbarity out of
our
Streets.
I consider it as a Satyr upon Projectors in general, and a lively Picture of the whole Art of Modern Criticism.
1
Sir,'Observingthat you have Thoughts of creating certain Officers under you for the Inspection of several petty Enormities which you your self cannot attend to; and finding daily Absurdities hung out upon the Sign-Posts of this City2, to the great Scandal of Foreigners, as well as those of our own Country, who are curious Spectators of the same: I do humbly propose, that you would be pleased to make me your Superintendant of all such Figures and Devices, as are or shall be made use of on this Occasion; with full Powers to rectify or expunge whatever I shall find irregular or defective. For want of such an Officer, there is nothing like sound Literature and good Sense to be met with in those Objects, that are everywhere thrusting themselves out to the Eye, and endeavouring to become visible. Our streets are filled with blue Boars, black Swans, and red Lions; not to mention flying Pigs, and Hogs in Armour, with many other Creatures more extraordinary than any in the desarts ofAfrick.Strange! that one who has all the Birds and Beasts in Nature to chuse out of, should live at the Sign of anEns Rationis!My first Task, therefore, should be, like that ofHercules, to clear the City from Monsters. In the second Place, I would forbid, that Creatures of jarring and incongruous Natures should be joined together in the same Sign; such as the Bell and the Neats-tongue, the Dog and Gridiron.TheFox and Goose may be supposed to have met, but what has the Fox and the Seven Stars to do together? and when did the Lamb3and Dolphin ever meet, except upon a Sign-Post? As for the Cat and Fiddle, there is a Conceit in it, and therefore, I do not intend that anything I have here said should affect it. I must however observe to you upon this Subject, that it is usual for a young Tradesman, at his first setting up, to add to his own Sign that of the Master whom he serv'd; as the Husband, after Marriage, gives a Place to his Mistress's Arms in his own Coat. This I take to have given Rise to many of those Absurdities which are committed over our Heads, and, as I am inform'd, first occasioned the three Nuns and a Hare, which we see so frequently joined together. I would, therefore, establish certain Rules, for the determining how far one Tradesman maygivethe Sign of another, and in what Cases he may be allowed to quarter it with his own.In the third place, I would enjoin every Shop to make use of a Sign which bears some Affinity to the Wares in which it deals. What can be more inconsistent, than to see a Bawd at the Sign of the Angel, or a Taylor at the Lion? A Cook should not live at the Boot, nor a Shoemaker at the roasted Pig; and yet, for want of this Regulation, I have seen a Goat set up before the Door of a Perfumer, and the French King's Head at a Sword-Cutler's.An ingenious Foreigner observes, that several of those Gentlemen who value themselves upon their Families, and overlook such as are bred to Trade, bear the Tools of their Fore-fathers in their Coats of Arms. I will not examine how true this is in Fact: But though it may not be necessary for Posterity thus to set up the Sign of their Fore-fathers; I think it highly proper for those who actually profess the Trade, to shew some such Marks of it before their Doors.When the Name gives an Occasion for an ingenious Sign-post, I would likewise advise the Owner to take that Opportunity of letting the World know who he is.Itwould have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs.Salmon4to have lived at the Sign of the Trout; for which Reason she has erected before her House the Figure of the Fish that is her Namesake. Mr.Bellhas likewise distinguished himself by a Device of the same Nature: And here, Sir, I must beg Leave to observe to you, that this particular Figure of a Bell has given Occasion to several Pieces of Wit in this Kind.AMan of your Reading must know, thatAbel Druggergained great Applause by it in the Time ofBen Johnson5. OurApocryphalHeathen God6is also represented by this Figure; which, in conjunction with the Dragon, make a very handsome picture in several of our Streets. As for the Bell-Savage, which is the Sign of a savage Man standing by a Bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the Conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old Romance translated out of the French; which gives an Account of a very beautiful Woman who was found in a Wilderness, and is called in the Frenchla belle Sauvage; and is everywhere translated by our Countrymen the Bell-Savage. This Piece of Philology will, I hope, convince you that I have made Sign posts my Study, and consequently qualified my self for the Employment which I sollicit at your Hands. But before I conclude my Letter, I must communicate to you another Remark, which I have made upon the Subject with which I am now entertaining you, namely, that I can give a shrewd Guess at the Humour of the Inhabitant by the Sign that hangs before his Door. A surly cholerick Fellow generally makes Choice of a Bear; as Men of milder Dispositions, frequently live at the Lamb. Seeing a Punch-Bowl painted upon a Sign nearCharing Cross, and very curiously garnished, with a couple of Angels hovering over it and squeezing a Lemmon into it, I had the Curiosity to ask after the Master of the House, and found upon Inquiry, as I had guessed by the littleAgréemensupon his Sign, that he was a Frenchman. I know, Sir, it is not requisite for me to enlarge upon these Hints to a Gentleman of your great Abilities; so humbly recommending my self to your Favour and Patronage,I remain, &c.
I shall add to the foregoing Letter, another which came to me by the same Penny-Post.
From my own Apartment near Charing-Cross.Honoured Sir,'Having heard that this Nation is a great Encourager of Ingenuity, I have brought with me a Rope-dancer that was caught in one of the Woods belonging to the GreatMogul. He is by Birth a Monkey; but swings upon a Rope, takes a pipe of Tobacco, and drinks a Glass of Ale, like any reasonable Creature. He gives great Satisfaction to the Quality; and if they will make a Subscription for him, I will send for a Brother of his out ofHolland, that is a very good Tumbler, and also for another of the same Family, whom I design for my Merry-Andrew, as being an excellent mimick, and the greatest Drole in the Country where he now is. I hope to have this Entertainment in a Readiness for the next Winter; and doubt not but it will please more than the Opera or Puppet-Show. I will not say that a Monkey is a better Man than some of the Opera Heroes; but certainly he is a better Representative of a Man, than the most artificial Composition of Wood and Wire. If you will be pleased to give me a good Word in your paper, you shall be every Night a Spectator at my Show for nothing.I am, &c.
C.
Footnote 1:
It is as follows.
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Footnote 2:
In the
Spectator's
time numbering of houses was so rare that in Hatton's
New View of London
, published in 1708, special mention is made of the fact that
'in Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, instead of signs the houses are distinguished by numbers, as the staircases in the Inns of Court and Chancery.'
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Footnote 3:
sheep
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Footnote 4:
The sign before her Waxwork Exhibition, in Fleet Street, near Temple Bar, was
the Golden Salmon
. She had very recently removed to this house from her old establishment in St. Martin's le Grand.
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Footnote 5:
Ben Jonson's Alchemist having taken gold from Abel Drugger, the Tobacco Man, for the device of a sign — 'a good lucky one, a thriving sign' — will give him nothing so commonplace as a sign copied from the constellation he was born under, but says:
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Footnote 6:
Bel, in the apocryphal addition to the
Book of Daniel
, called
the History of the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon.
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Contents
... Sermo linguâ concinnus utrâqueSuavior: ut Chio nota si commista Falerni est.Hor.translation
There is nothing that
has
more startled our
English
Audience, than the
Italian Recitativo
at its first Entrance upon the Stage. People were wonderfully surprized to hear Generals singing the Word of Command, and Ladies delivering Messages in Musick. Our Country-men could not forbear laughing when they heard a Lover chanting out a Billet-doux, and even the Superscription of a Letter set to a Tune. The Famous Blunder in an old Play of
Enter a King and two Fidlers Solus
, was now no longer an Absurdity, when it was impossible for a Hero in a Desart, or a Princess in her Closet, to speak anything unaccompanied with Musical Instruments.
But however this
Italian
method of acting in
Recitativo
might appear at first hearing, I cannot but think it much more just than that which prevailed in our
English
Opera before this Innovation: The Transition from an Air to Recitative Musick being more natural than the passing from a Song to plain and ordinary Speaking, which was the common Method in
Purcell's
Operas.
The only Fault I find in our present Practice, is the making use of
Italian Recitative
with
English
Words.
To
go to the Bottom of this Matter, I must observe, that the Tone, or (as the
French
call it) the Accent of every Nation in their ordinary Speech is altogether different from that of every other People, as we may see even in the
Welsh
and
Scotch
,
who
1
border so near upon us. By the Tone or Accent, I do not mean the Pronunciation of each particular Word, but the Sound of the whole Sentence. Thus it is very common for an
English
Gentleman, when he hears a
French
Tragedy, to complain that the Actors all of them speak in a Tone; and therefore he very wisely prefers his own Country-men, not considering that a Foreigner complains of the same Tone in an
English
Actor.
For this Reason, the Recitative Musick in every Language, should be as different as the Tone or Accent of each Language; for otherwise, what may properly express a Passion in one Language, will not do it in another. Every one who has been long in
Italy
knows very well, that the Cadences in the
Recitativo
bear a remote Affinity to the Tone of their Voices in ordinary Conversation, or to speak more properly, are only the Accents of their Language made more Musical and Tuneful.
Thus
the Notes of Interrogation, or Admiration, in the
Italian
Musick (if one may so call them) which resemble their Accents in Discourse on such Occasions, are not unlike the ordinary Tones of an
English
Voice when we are angry; insomuch that I have often seen our Audiences extreamly mistaken as to what has been doing upon the Stage, and expecting to see the Hero knock down his Messenger, when he has been
asking
2
him a Question, or fancying that he quarrels with his Friend, when he only bids him Good-morrow.
For
this Reason the
Italian
Artists cannot agree with our
English
Musicians in admiring
Purcell's
Compositions
3
, and thinking his Tunes so wonderfully adapted to his Words, because both Nations do not always express the same Passions by the same Sounds.
I am therefore humbly of Opinion, that an
English
Composer should not follow the
Italian
Recitative too servilely, but make use of many gentle Deviations from it, in Compliance with his own Native Language. He may Copy out of it all the lulling Softness and
Dying Falls
(as
Shakespear
calls them), but should still remember that he ought to accommodate himself to an
English
Audience, and by humouring the Tone of our Voices in ordinary Conversation, have the same Regard to the Accent of his own Language, as those Persons had to theirs whom he professes to imitate. It is observed, that several of the singing Birds of our own Country learn to sweeten their Voices, and mellow the Harshness of their natural Notes, by practising under those that come from warmer Climates. In the same manner, I would allow the
Italian
Opera to lend our
English
Musick as much as may grace and soften it, but never entirely to annihilate and destroy it. Let the Infusion be as strong as you please, but still let the Subject Matter of it be
English
.
A Composer should fit his Musick to the Genius of the People, and consider that the Delicacy of Hearing, and Taste of Harmony, has been formed upon those Sounds which every Country abounds with: In short, that Musick is of a Relative Nature, and what is Harmony to one Ear, may be Dissonance to another.
The same Observations which I have made upon the Recitative part of Musick may be applied to all our Songs and Airs in general.
Signior
Baptist Lully
4
acted like a Man of Sense in this Particular. He found the
French
Musick extreamly defective, and very often barbarous: However, knowing the Genius of the People, the Humour of their Language, and the prejudiced Ears
he
5
had to deal with he did not pretend to extirpate the
French
Musick, and plant the
Italian
in its stead; but only to Cultivate and Civilize it with innumerable Graces and Modulations which he borrow'd from the
Italian
. By this means the
French
Musick is now perfect in its kind; and when you say it is not so good as the
Italian
, you only mean that it does not please you so well; for there is
scarce
a
Frenchman
who would not wonder to hear you give the
Italian
such a Preference. The Musick of the
French
is indeed very properly adapted to their Pronunciation and Accent, as their whole Opera wonderfully favours the Genius of such a gay airy People. The Chorus in which that Opera abounds, gives the Parterre frequent Opportunities of joining in Consort with the Stage. This Inclination of the Audience to Sing along with the Actors, so prevails with them, that I have sometimes known the Performer on the Stage do no more in a Celebrated Song, than the Clerk of a Parish Church, who serves only to raise the Psalm, and is afterwards drown'd in the Musick 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-cheek'd as Milk-maids. The Shepherds are all Embroider'd, and acquit themselves in a Ball better than our
English
Dancing Masters. I have seen a couple of Rivers appear in red Stockings; and
Alpheus
, instead of having his Head covered with Sedge and Bull-Rushes, making Love in a fair full-bottomed Perriwig, and a Plume of Feathers; but with a Voice so full of Shakes and Quavers that I should have thought the Murmurs of a Country Brook the much more agreeable Musick.
I remember the last Opera I saw in that merry Nation was the Rape of
Proserpine
, where
Pluto
, to make the more tempting Figure, puts himself in a
French
Equipage, and brings
Ascalaphus
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 shall add no more to what I have here offer'd, than that Musick, Architecture, and Painting, as well as Poetry, and Oratory, are to deduce their Laws and Rules from the general Sense and Taste of Mankind, and not from the Principles of those Arts themselves; or, in other Words, the Taste is not to conform to the Art, but the Art to the Taste. Music is not design'd to please only Chromatick Ears, but all that are capable ef distinguishing harsh from disagreeable Notes. A Man of an ordinary Ear is a Judge whether a Passion is express'd in proper Sounds, and whether the Melody of those Sounds be more or less pleasing.
C.
Footnote 1:
: that
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Footnote 2:
only asking
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Footnote 3:
Henry Purcell died of consumption in 1695, aged 37.
'He was,' says Mr. Hullah, in hisLectures on the History of Modern Music, 'the first Englishman to demonstrate the possibility of a national opera. No Englishman of the last century succeeded in following Purcell's lead into this domain of art; none, indeed, would seem to have understood in what his excellence consisted, or how his success was attained. His dramatic music exhibits the same qualities which had already made the success of Lulli. ... For some years after Purcell's death his compositions, of whatever kind, were the chief, if not the only, music heard in England. His reign might have lasted longer, but for the advent of a musician who, though not perhaps more highly gifted, had enjoyed immeasurably greater opportunities of cultivating his gifts,'
Handel, who had also the advantage of being born thirty years later.
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Footnote 4:
John Baptist Lulli, a Florentine, died in 1687, aged 53. In his youth he was an under-scullion in the kitchen of Madame de Montpensier, niece to Louis XIV. The discovery of his musical genius led to his becoming the King's Superintendent of Music, and one of the most influential composers that has ever lived. He composed the occasional music for Molière's comedies, besides about twenty lyric tragedies; which succeeded beyond all others in France, not only because of his dramatic genius, which enabled him to give to the persons of these operas a musical language fitted to their characters and expressive of the situations in which they were placed; but also, says Mr. Hullah, because
'Lulli being the first modern composer who caught the French ear, was the means, to a great extent, of forming the modern French taste.'
His operas kept the stage for more than a century.
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Footnote 5:
that he
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Contents
Si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore FocisqueNil est Fucundum; vivas in amore Focisque.Hor.translation
One common Calamity makes Men extremely affect each other, tho' they differ in every other Particular. The Passion of Love is the most general Concern among Men; and I am glad to hear by my last Advices from
Oxford
, that there are a Set of Sighers in that University, who have erected themselves into a Society in honour of that tender Passion. These Gentlemen are of that Sort of Inamoratos, who are not so very much lost to common Sense, but that they understand the Folly they are guilty of; and for that Reason separate themselves from all other Company, because they will enjoy the Pleasure 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 Discourse, but at once, as he is seating himself in his Chair, speaks in the Thread of his own Thoughts, 'She gave me a very obliging Glance, She Never look'd so well in her Life as this Evening,' or the like Reflection, without Regard to any other Members of the Society; for in this Assembly they do not meet to talk to each other, but every Man claims the full Liberty of talking to himself. Instead of Snuff-boxes and Canes, which are the usual Helps to Discourse with other young Fellows, these have each some Piece of Ribbon, a broken Fan, or an old Girdle, which they play with while they talk of the fair Person remember'd by each respective Token. According to the Representation of the Matter from my Letters, the Company appear like so many Players rehearsing behind the Scenes; one is sighing and lamenting his Destiny in beseeching Terms, another declaring he will break his Chain, and another in dumb-Show, striving to express his Passion by his Gesture. It is very ordinary in the Assembly for one of a sudden to rise and make a Discourse concerning his Passion in general, and describe the Temper of his Mind in such a Manner, as that the whole Company shall join in the Description, and feel the Force of it. In this Case, if any Man has declared the Violence of his Flame in more pathetick Terms, he is made President for that Night, out of respect to his superior Passion.
We had some Years ago in this Town a Set of People who met and dressed like Lovers, and were distinguished by the Name of the
Fringe-Glove Club
; but they were Persons of such moderate Intellects even before they were impaired by their Passion, that their Irregularities could not furnish sufficient Variety of Folly to afford daily new Impertinencies; by which Means that Institution dropp'd. These Fellows could express their Passion in nothing but their Dress; but the
Oxonians
are Fantastical now they are Lovers, in proportion to their Learning and Understanding before they became such. The Thoughts of the ancient Poets on this agreeable Phrenzy, are translated in honour of some modern Beauty; and