One scarce knows how to be serious in the confutation of an absurdity that shows itself at the first sight. It does not want any great measure of sense to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice; but what makes it the more astonishing, it is not the taste of the rabble, but of persons of the greatest politeness, which has established it.

If the Italians have a genius for music above the English, the English have a genius for other performances of a much higher nature, and capable of giving the mind a much nobler entertainment. Would one think it was possible (at a time when an author lived that was able to write the Phædra and Hippolitus) for a people to be so stupidly fond of the Italian opera, as scarce to give a third day's hearing to that admirable tragedy? Music is certainly a very agreeable entertainment, but if it would take the entire possession of our ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing sense, if it would exclude arts that have a much greater tendency to the refinement of human nature, I must confess I would allow it no better quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his commonwealth.

At present, our notions of music are so very uncertain, that we do not know what it is we like; only in general, we are transported with anything that is not English: so it be of a foreign growth, let it be Italian, French, or High-Dutch, it is the same thing. In short, our English music is quite rooted out, and nothing yet planted in its stead.

When a royal palace is burnt to the ground, every man is at liberty to present his plan for a new one; and though it be but indifferently put together, it may furnish several hints that may be of use to a good architect. I shall take the same liberty in a following paper, of giving my opinion upon the subject of music; which I shall lay down only in a problematical manner, to be considered by those who are masters in the art.

No. 21. SATURDAY, MARCH 24.

-Locus est et pluribus umbris. HOR.

I AM sometimes very much troubled, when I reflect upon the three great professions of divinity, law, and physic; how

they are each of them over-burdened with practitioners, and filled with multitudes of ingenious gentlemen that starve one another.

We may divide the clergy into generals, field-officers, and subalterns. Among the first we may reckon bishops, deans, and arch-deacons. Among the second are doctors of divinity, prebendaries, and all that wear scarfs. The rest are comprehended under the subalterns. As for the first class, our constitution preserves it from any redundancy of incumbents, notwithstanding competitors are numberless. Upon a strict calculation it is found that there has been a great exceeding of late years in the second division, several brevets having been granted for the converting of subalterns into scarfofficers; insomuch that within my memory the price of lustring is raised above two-pence in a yard. As for the subalterns, they are not to be numbered. Should our clergy once enter into the corrupt practice of the laity, by the splitting of their freeholds, they would be able to carry most of the elections in England.

The body of the law is no less encumbered with superfluous members, that are like Virgil's army, which he tells us was so crowded, many of them had not room to use their weapons. This prodigious society of men may be divided into the litigious and peaceable. Under the first are comprehended all those who are carried down in coachfuls to Westminster Hall, every morning in term-time. Martial's descriptions of this species of lawyers is full of humour:

Iras et verba locant,

"Men that hire out their words and anger;" that are more or less passionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their client a quantity of wrath proportionable to the fee which they receive from him. I must, however, observe to the reader, that above three parts of those whom I reckon among the litigious, are such as are only quarrelsome in their hearts, and have no opportunity of showing their passion at the bar. Nevertheless, as they do not know what strifes may arise, they appear at the hall every day, that they may show themselves in readiness to enter the lists, whenever there shall be occasion for them.

The peaceable lawyers are, in the first place, many of the benchers of the several inns of court, who seem to be the dignitaries of the law, and are endowed with those qualifica

tions of mind that accomplish a man rather for a ruler than a pleader. These men live peaceably in their habitations, eating once a day, and dancing once a year, for the honour of the respective societies.

Another numberless branch of peaceable lawyers, are those young men, who being placed at the inns of court in order to study the laws of their country, frequent the playhouse more than Westminster Hall, and are seen in all public assemblies except in a court of justice. I shall say nothing of those silent and busy multitudes that are employed within doors, in the drawing up of writings and conveyances; nor of those greater numbers that palliate their want of business with a pretence to such chamber-practice.

If, in the third place, we look into the profession of physic, we shall find a most formidable body of men: the sight of them is enough to make a man serious; for we may lay it down as a maxim, that when a nation abounds in physicians, it grows thin of people. Sir William Temple is very much puzzled to find out a reason why the northern hive, as he calls it, does not send out such prodigious swarms, and over-run the world with Goths and Vandals, as it did formerly; but had that excellent author observed, that there were no students in physic among the subjects of Thor and Woden, and that this science very much flourishes in the north at present, he might have found a better solution for this difficulty than any of those he has made use of. This body of men, in our own country, may be described like the British army in Cæsar's time: some of them slay in chariots, and some on foot. If the infantry do less execution than the charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried so soon into all quarters of the town, and despatch so much business in so short a time. Besides this body of regular troops, there are stragglers, who, without being duly listed and enrolled, do infinite mischief to those who are so unlucky as to fall into their hands.

There are, besides the above-mentioned, innumerable retainers to physic, who, for want of other patients, amuse themselves with the stifling of cats in an air-pump, cutting up dogs alive, or impaling of insects1 upon the point of a needle for microscopical observations; besides those that are

There would be no objection to this raillery, if it were fit that raillery should be at all employed on a subject of this nature.

employed in the gathering of weeds, and the chase of butterflies; not to mention the cockleshell-merchants and spidercatchers.

When I consider how each of these professions are crowded with multitudes that seek their livelihood in them, and how many men of merit there are in each of them, who may be rather said to be of the science than the profession; I very much wonder at the humour of parents, who will not rather choose to place their sons in a way of life where an honest industry cannot but thrive, than in stations where the greatest probity, learning, and good sense may miscarry. How many men are country curates, that might have made themselves aldermen of London, by a right improvement of a smaller sum of money than what is usually laid out upon a learned education! A sober, frugal person, of slender parts and a slow apprehension, might have thrived in trade, though he starves upon physic; as a man would be well enough pleased to buy silks of one, whom he would not venturel to feel his pulse. Vagellius is careful, studious, and obliging, but withal a little thick-skulled; he has not a single client, but might have had abundance of customers. The misfortune is, that parents take a liking to a particular profession, and therefore desire their sons may be of it. Whereas, in so great an affair of life, they should consider the genius and abilities of their children, more than their own inclinations.

It is the great advantage of a trading nation, that there are very few in it so dull and heavy, who may not be placed in stations of life, which may give them an opportunity of making their fortunes. A well-regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors. Fleets of merchantmen are so many squadrons of floating shops, that vend our wares and manufactures in all the markets of the world, and find out chapmen under both the tropics.

1 Venture is a neutral verb, and so cannot stand in this construction. It should be employ, call in, or some such transitive verb, of which "whom" might be governed; and through which the person and the act, i. e. "whom" and "feel," should be necessarily connected.

No. 23. TUESDAY, MARCH 27.

Sævit atrox Volscens, nec teli conspicit usquam

Auctorem, nec quò se ardens immittere possit. VIRG.

THERE is nothing that more betrays a base, ungenerous spirit, than the giving of1 secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. For this reason I am very much troubled when I see the talents of humour and ridicule in the possession of an ill-natured man. There cannot be a greater gratification to a barbarous and inhuman wit, than to stir up sorrow in the heart of a private person, to raise uneasiness among near relations, and to expose whole families to derision, at the same time that he remains unseen and undiscovered. If, besides the accomplishments of being witty and illnatured, a man is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the most mischievous creatures that can enter into a civil society. His satire will then chiefly fall upon those who ought to be the most exempt from it. Virtue, merit, and everything that is praiseworthy, will be made the subject of ridicule and buffoonery. It is impossible to enumerate the evils which arise from these arrows that fly in the dark;2 and I know no other excuse that is or can be made for them, than that

The giving of.] This use of the participle, instead of the substantive, is agreeable to the English idiom, and has a good effect in our language, which in this, as in other instances, resembles the Greek much more than the Latin tongue. But our polite writers, being generally most conversant in the latter of these languages, have gradually introduced the substantive, or a verb in the infinitive mood, into the place of the participle. Thus, they would say, "detraction," or "to detract from the reputation of others, shows a base spirit." Yet the practice is not so far established, but that the other mode of expression may, sometimes, (though more sparingly, perhaps, than heretofore,) be employed. An exact writer, indeed, would not set out with a sentence in this form; but, in the body of a discourse, currente calamo," he would not scruple to make use of it. Never to employ the participle, would be finical and affected: to employ it constantly, or frequently, would now be thought careless: but to employ it occasionally, contributes plainly to the variety, and, I think, to the grace, of a good English style.

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2 Which arise from these arrows that fly in the dark.] This sentence had been more exact, and less languid, if he had said, "Innumerable evils arise from those arrows that fly in the dark.