not really be metamorphofed into that mufical and melancholy bird, is ftill a doubt among the Lesbians.

Alcæus, the famous Lyric poet, who had for fome time been paffionately in love with Sappho, arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap upon her account; but hearing that Sappho had been there before him, and that her body could be no where found, he very generously lamented her fall, and is faid to have written his hundred and twenty-fifth ode upon that occafion.

Leaped in this Olympiad 250.

Males

124

Vellem in amicitia fic erraremus. HOR. Sat. 3. 1. 1. v. 41, I wish this error in our friendship reign'd. CREECH.

YOU very often hear people, after a story has

been told with fome entertaining circumftances, tell it over again with particulars that deftroy the jeft, but give light into the truth of the narration. This fort of veracity, though it is impertinent, has fomething amiable in it, because it proceeds from the love of truth, even in frivolous occafions. If fuch honeft amendments do not promife an agreeable companion, they do a fin- cere friend; for which reason one fhould allow them fo much of our time, if we fall into their company, as to fet us right in matters that can do us no manner of harm,, whether the facts be one way or the other. Lies which are told out of arrogance and oftentation a man fhould detect in his own defence, because he should not be triumphed over; lies which are told out of malice he fhould expofe, both for his own fake and that of the reft of mankind, because every man should rife against

2

a common enemy but the officious liar many have argued is to be excufed, because it does fome man good, and no man hurt. The man who made more than ordinary fpeed from a fight in which the Athenians were beaten, and told them they had obtained a complete victory, and put the whole city into the utmost joy and exultation, was checked by the magiftrates for his falsehood; but excufed himself by saying, "O Athenians! am " I your enemy because I gave you two happy days?" This fellow did to a whole people what an acquaintance of mine does every day he lives in fome eminent degree to particular perfons. He is ever lying people into good humour, and, as Plato faid it is allowable in phyficians to lie to their patients to keep up their spirits, I am half doubtful whether my friend's behaviour is not as excufable. His manner is to exprefs himself surprised at the chearful countenance of a man whom he observes diffident of himself; and generally by that means makes his lie a truth. He will, as if he did not know any thing of the circumstance, afk one whom he knows at variance with another, what is the meaning that Mr. Such-a-one, naming his adverfary, does not applaud him with that heartiness which formerly he has heard him? He said indeed, continues he, I would rather have that man for my friend than any man in England; but for an enemy This melts the perfon he talks to, who expected nothing but downright raillery from that fide. According as he fees his practices fucceed, he goes to the oppofite party, and tells him, he cannot imagine how it happens that some people know one another fo little; you fpoke with fo much coldnefs of a gentleman who faid more good of you, than, let me tell you, any man living deferves. The fuccefs of one of these incidents was, that the next time that one of the adverfaries fpied the other, he hems after him in the public ftreet, and they muft crack a bottle at the next tavern, that used to turn out of the other's way to avoid one another's eyeshot. He will tell one beauty fhe was commended by another, nay, he will fay fhe gave the woman he speaks to, the preference in a particular for which fhe herself is admired. The pleafanteft confufion imaginable is made through the whole town by my friend's indirect

offices ; you shall have a vifit returned after half a year's abfence, and mutual railing at each other every day of that time. They meet with a thousand lamentations for fo long a feparation, each party naming herself for the greater delinquent, if the other can poffibly be fo good as to forgive her, which she has no reason in the world, but from the knowledge of her goodness to hope for. Very often a whole train of railers of each fide tire their horfes in fetting matters right which they have faid during the war between the parties; and a whole circle of acquaintance are put into a thoufand pleafing paffions and fentiments, instead of the pangs of anger, envy, detraction, and malice.

The worst evil I ever obferved this man's falsehood occafion, has been that he turned detraction into flattery. He is well skilled in the manners of the world, and by overlooking what men really are, he grounds his artifices upon what they have a mind to be. Upon this foundation, if two distant friends are brought together, and the cement feems to be weak, he never refts until he finds new appearances to take off all remains of ill-will, and that by new mifunderstandings they are thoroughly reconciled.

ઃ

SIR,

To the SPECTATOR.

Devonshire, Nov. 14. 1711. THERE arrived in this neighbourhood two days ago one of your gay gentlemen of the town, who being attended at his entry with a fervant of his own, ⚫ befides a countryman he had taken up for a guide, ex⚫ cited the curiofity of the village to learn whence and what he might be. The countryman, to whom they applied as moft eafy of accefs, knew little more than that the gentleman came from London to travel and fee fashions, and was, as he heard fay, a free-thinker : what religion that might be, he could not tell; and for his own part, if they had not told him the man was a free-thinker, he fhould have gueffed, by his way of talking, he was little better than a heathen; excepting only that he had been a good gentleman to him, and made him drunk twice in one day, over and above what they had bargained for.

'I do not look upon the fimplicity of this, and feveral odd inquiries with which I shall not trouble you,

⚫ to be wondered at; much less can I think that our 'youths of fine wit, and enlarged understandings, have any reafon to laugh. There is no neceffity that every 'fquire in Great-Britain fhould know what the word 'free-thinker ftands for; but it were much to be wifhed,

་

that they who value themselves upon that conceited 'title were a little better inftructed in what it ought to 'ftand for; and that they would not perfuade themfelves a man is really and truly a free-thinker in any 'tolerable sense, merely by virtue of his being an atheift, or an infidel of any other diftinction. It may be doubted with good reason, whether there ever was in nature a more abject, flavish, and bigoted generation than the tribe of Beaux Efprits, at prefent fo prevailing in this ifland. Their pretenfion to be free-thinkers, is no ⚫ other than rakes have to be free-livers, and favages to 'be free-men; that is, they can think whatever they ⚫ have a mind to, and give themselves up to whatever conceit the extravagancy of their inclination, or their fancy, fhall fuggeft; they can think as wildly as they talk and act, and will not endure that their wit should 'be controuled by fuch formal things as decency and. ⚫ common sense: deduction, coherence, confiftency, and all the rules of reafon they accordingly difdain, as too precife and mechanical for men of a liberal education.. This, as far as I could ever learn from their writings, or my own obfervation, is a true account of the British free-thinker. Our vifitant here, who gave occafion to this paper, has brought with him a new fyftem of com'mon fenfe, the particulars of which I am not yet acquainted with, but will lofe no opportunity of inform-ing myself whether it contains any thing worth Mr. SPECTATOR's notice. In the mean time, fir, I cannot "but think it would be for the good of mankind, if you would take this fubject into your own confideration, and convince the hopeful youth of our nation, that licentiousness is not freedom; or, if fuch a paradox will not be understood, that a prejudice towards atheism is not impartiality.

T..

I am, fir, your most humble fervant, .

PHILONOUS?

Awes the tumultuous noifes of the pit. ROSCOMMON.

THERE is nothing which lies more within the

province of a spectator than public fhows and diverfions; and as among these there are none which can pretend to vie with those elegant entertainments that are exhibited in our theatres, I think it particularly incumbent on me to take notice of every thing that is remarkable in fuch numerous and refined affemblies.

It is obferved, that of late years there has been a certain perfon in the upper gallery of the play-houfe, who when he is pleafed with any thing that is acted upon the ftage, expreffes his approbation by a loud knock upon the benches or the wainscot, which may be heard over the whole theatre. This perfon is commonly known by the name of the trunk-maker in the upper-gallery." Whether it be, that the blow he gives on thefe occafions resembles that which is often heard in the fhops of fuch artifans, or that he was fuppofed to have been a real trunk-maker, who after the finifhing of his day's work, used to unbend his mind at these public diverfions with his hammer in his hand, I cannot certainly tell. There are fome, I know, who have been foolish enough to imagine it is a spirit which haunts the upper-gallery, and from time to time makes those strange noifes; and the rather because he is obferved to be louder than ordinary every time the ghost of Hamlet appears. Others have reported, that it is a dumb man, who has chofen this way of uttering himself when he is tranfported with any thing he fees or hears. Others will have it to be the playhouse thunderer, that exerts himself after this manner in the upper-gallery when he has nothing to do upon the roof.

But having made it my business to get the beft information I could in a matter of this moment, I find that the trunk-maker, as he is commonly called, is a large