Volume I Part 26 (1/2)

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 Great _Mogul_. He is by Birth a Monkey; but swings upon a Rope, takes a pipe of Tobacco, and drinks a Gla.s.s 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 of _Holland_, 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.]

[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.']

[Footnote 3: sheep]

[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.]

[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:

'Subtle'. He shall have 'a bel', that's 'Abel'; And by it standing one whose name is 'Dee'

In a 'rug' grown, there's 'D' and 'rug', that's 'Drug': And right anenst him a dog snarling 'er', There's 'Drugger', Abel Drugger. That's his sign.

And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic.

'Face'. Abel, thou art made.

'Drugger'. Sir, I do thank his wors.h.i.+p.]

[Footnote 6: Bel, in the apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel, called 'the 'History of the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon.']

No. 29. Tuesday, April 3, 1711 Addison

... Sermo lingua concinnus utraque Suavior: ut Chio nota si commista Falerni est.

Hor.