SPECTA

Frase a pige at Child's

particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.1

I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a more particular account. There is no place of general resort, wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Some

1 A half century's contention respecting the exact admeasurement of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh was a fair subject for ridicule, in spite of Dr. Percy's stigma, that the satire was "reprehensible." Mr. John Greaves originated the argument so long before the publication of this harmless raillery as 1646, in his work entitled "Pyramidologia;" and it seems to have been carried on with burning zeal and wonderful learning to the days of the "Spectator," although death had removed Greaves from the discussion in 1652. In No. 7. the "Spectator" says, "I design to visit the next masquerade in the same habit I wore at Grand Cairo."-*

• THE COFFEE-HOUSES. The chief places of resort were coffee and chocolate houses, in which some men almost lived; insomuch that whoever wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not where he resided, but which coffee-house he frequented? No decently attired idler was excluded, provided he laid down his penny at the bar; but this he could seldom do without struggling through the crowd of beaux who fluttered round the lovely bar-maid. Here the proud nobleman or country squire was not to be distinguished from the genteel thief and daring highwayman. "Pray, sir," says Aimwell to Gibbet, in Farquhar's "Beaux Stratagem "ha'n't I seen your face at Will's coffee-house?" The robber's reply is:"Yes, sir; and at White's too."

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Coffee-houses, from the time of their commencement in 1652, served instead of newspapers: they were arenæ for political discussion. Journalism was, in 1710, in its infancy: the first daily newspaper ("The Daily Courant,") was scarcely two years old, and was too small to contain much news; as were the other journals then extant. Hence the fiercely contested polemics of the period were either waged in single pamphlets, or in periodicals started to advocate or to oppose some particular question, and laid down when that was settled. The peaceful leading article and mild letter "to the Editor" had not come into vogue as safety-valves for the

The there is

escape of overboiling party zeal; and the hot blood, roused in public rooms to quarrelling pitch, was too often cooled by the rapier's point.

Each coffee-house had its political or literary speciality; and of those enumerated in the present paper, WILL's was the rendezvous for the wits and poets. It was named after William Urwin, its proprietor, and was situated at No. 1, Bow-street, at the corner of Great Russell-street, Covent Garden; the coffee-room was on the first floor, the lower part having been occupied as a retail shop. Dryden's patronage and frequent appearance made the reputation of the house; which was afterwards maintained by other celebrated characters. De Foe wrote-about the year 1720-that *after the play, the best company go to Tom's or Will's Coffee-house near adjoining; where there is playing picquet and the best conversation till midnight. Here you will see blue and green ribbons and stars familiarly, and talking with the same freedom, as if they had left their quality and degrees of distance at home." The turn of conversation is happily hit off in the "Spectator" for June 12th, 1712, when a false report of the death of Louis XIV. had reached England:-"Upon my going into Will's I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French king to that of Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets; whom they regretted on this occasion, as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning." It was from Will's coffee-house that the Tatler" dated his poetry.

CHILD'S was in St. Paul's Churchyard. Its vicinity to the cathedral and Doctors' Commons made it the resort of the clergy and other ecclesiastical loungers. In one respect Child's was superseded by the Chapter in Paternoster Row.

THE ST. JAMES'S was the "Spectator's" head-quarters. It stood at the end of Pall Mall-of which it commanded a perspective view-near to, if not upon, the site of what is now No. 87 St. James's-street, and close to Ozinda's chocolate house. These were the great party rallying places; "a whig," says De Foe, "would no more go to the Cocoa Tree or Ozinda's than a tory would be seen at St. James's." Swift, however, frequented the latter during his sojourn in London, :710-13; till, fighting in the van of the tory ranks, he could no longer show his face there, and was obliged to relinquish the society of those literary friends whom, though whigs, he

in the

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SPECTATOR.

ter of people, I always mix with them, though I never open os but in my own club.

hus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind, as one of the species; by which means I have made myself culative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without meddling with any practical part in my life. I am very versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can disthe errors in the economy, business and diversion of others, er than those who are engaged in them; as standers-by disr blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. ever espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to erve an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unI shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either e. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a ker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this

I have given the reader just so much of my history and chaeter, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the siness I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life ad adventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as I all see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own aciturnity; and since I have neither time nor inclination to ommunicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved o do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a

sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit of my contemporaries; and if I can any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.

There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper; and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time: I mean an account of my name, my age, and my lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can suffer, is the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason likewise, that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets; though it is not impossible, but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken.

After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in tomorrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to

The word club, as applied to convivial meetings, is derived from the Saxon cleafan, to divide, "because," says Skinner, "the expenses are divided into shares or portions."

"Clubs were more general in the days of the "Spectator" than perhaps at any other period of our history. Throughout the previous half-century public discord had dissevered private society; and, at the Restoration, men yearned for fellowship; but as, even yet, political danger lurked under an unguarded expression or a rash toast, companions could not be