no remedy, but women will be meddling with this arte of polishing, let them insteede of those mineral stuffes, use the remedies following:

Of suche helpes of beauty as may safely be used without danger.

There is nothing in the world which doth more beautifie and adorne a woman, than cheerfulness and contentment: for it is not the red and white which giveth the gratious perfection of beauty, but certain sparkling notes and touches of amiable cheerfulness accompanying the same; the trueth whereof may appear in a discontented woman, otherwise exceeding faire, who at that instant will seem yl favoured and unlovely: as contrariewise an hard-favoured and browne woman, being merry, pleasant, and jocund, will seem sufficient beautiful.

Secondly, honesty: because though a woman be fair and merry, and yet be dishonest, she must needs seem most ougly to an ingenuous and honest mind.

Thirdly, wisdome: for a foolish, vain, giggling dame cannot be reputed fair, insomuch as she hath an impure and polluted mind.

But hereof sufficient, till a further opportunitie be ministered. Mean while, if any be desirous to be more satisfied on this point, I referre them to an oration or treaties of Nazianzen's concerning this

matter.'

Thus far Lomatius; and as I have not been able to procure the treatise he refers to, I could wish with all my heart that the ladies would lay aside their paint for a few weeks, and make trial of his receipt. It will indeed cost them some trouble,

VOL. III.

K

and may possibly require a little alteration in their manner of living: but I will venture to assert, that the united toilettes of a hundred women of fashion cannot furnish a composition that will be half so efficacious.

No. 159. THURSDAY, JANUARY, 15, 1756.

OLD as I am, my curiosity carried me the other night to see the new dramatic satire, called The Apprentice, which, considering the present epidemic madness for theatrical employments raging through the lower ranks of people, will I hope be as serviceable to cure the English mob of that idle disorder, as the immortal work of Cervantes was to exorcise from the breasts of the Spanish nobility the demon of knight-errantry. The piece is new and entertaining, and has received no inconsiderable advantages from the masterly performance of a principal comedian, who, with a true genius for the stage, has very naturally represented the contemptible insufficiency of a pert pretension to it. At my return to my lodgings, I found the following letter on my table:

SIR,

TO MR. FITZ-ADAM.

Among the many benevolent designs which have adorned the present well-disposed age, I remember to have read one a few years ago, in a periodical pamphlet, intituled, A proposal for building an hospital for decayed authors,' which gave me, and many other charitable people, much satisfaction. If the aged, the lame, and the blind, are proper objects

of compassion, how much more so are those, who (if I may use the expression) have mutilated their understandings by an application to an art which incapacitates its professors for all other pursuits! How many sublime geniuses have we daily seen, who, scorning the mechanic drudgeries to which they have been destined by their muck-worm parents, have so feasted their minds with Pierian delicacies, as to leave their bodies to perish through nakedness and hunger!

Having heard that the author of that essay made an impression not only upon those who shed often the tears of pity, but even upon usurers, attornies, and sober tradesmen, I have ventured, by the conveyance of your paper, to lay my thoughts before the public, in compassion to the distresses of another order of men, who, in a subordinate degree, are connected with the sublime race of authors, and, as retainers to the muses, claim mine and your assistance. The persons I mean are such as, either from the want of ambition or capacity, are prevented from soaring high enough to oblige mankind with their own conceptions, and yet, having a taste or inclination above handling a yard, or engrossing parchment, entertain and instruct the rest of their species by retailing the thoughts of others, and animating their own carcasses with the everliving sentiments of heroes, heroines, wits, and legislators. These gentlemen and ladies, whilst they are resident in London, are called in plain English, ACTORS; but when they condescend to exhibit their illustrious personages in the country, the common people distinguish them by the name of STAGE-PLAYERS, the rural gentry by the uncivil appellation of STROLLERS, and a more unmannerly act of parliament by the names of VAGRANTS and VAGABONDS. Such,

sir, is the present ill-bred dialect of our common statute law.

I must confess it has grieved me not a little, when I have beheld a theatrical veteran, who has served all the campaigns of Alexander, Julius Cæsar, and Henry the fifth, cast off by cruel fate, or the caprice of a manager, and condemned (in the tragic words of a celebrated poet)

To beg his bitter bread

Through realms his valour sav'd:

but judge, Mr. Fitz-Adam, what must have been my anxiety, when I have heard that a truly Christian actor (which is no small miracle in our days) who has inoffensively trod the stage many years without ever molesting our passions, or breaking the commandment by representing the likeness of any thing upon the earth, should be discarded merely upon the account of this his quiet deportment, and sent to eat the unmuse-like bread of industry, behind the entrenchment of a counter! Shall a man, born with a soul aspiring to imitate the rapine of a Bajazet, or a woman with a heart burning to emulate the whoredoms of a Cleopatra, be sent, the one to weigh out sugar and spices to dirty mechanics, and the other to be cruelly fettered in the bonds of matrimony, among a phlegmatic race of creatures, where chastity is reckoned a virtue? Indeed, sir, when you come seriously to think of these things, I dare say you will lament with me, that in all this hospital-erecting town there is no charitable asylum yet founded for these unfortunate representatives of the greatest personages that ever trod the stage of earth.

We are told by Hamlet, that it is not impossible to trace Alexander's carcase, after his world-con

quering spirit had left it, to the stopping of a bunghole: but methinks it would not be decent for so civilized a nation as our own, to suffer any living hero to be so reduced by fortune, as to stop that place which the dead Macedonian monarch was supposed to perform the office of clay to. In plain English, would it not be shocking to see a fine perriwig-pated emperor, whom we have beheld ascend the capitol as Julius Cæsar, degraded to fill smallbeer barrels at Hockley-in-the-Hole?

To what base uses may we turn?

But that such heart-breaking anticipations may not weigh upon the spirits of these theatrical geniuses, while they are bringing the stately personages of antiquity before our eyes; and that our Pyrrhuses, Tamerlanes, and Marc Antonies, even though itinerant, may not sneak into the sheepish look of taylors, by foreboding that the cruel lot of fate may ere long destine those legs, which are now adorned with the regal buskin, to cross one another again upon an obscure shop-board in a garret ; I say, that we may drive misery from the minds of these worthies, when she puts on such horrid shapes, I would propose to the nobility and gentry of this metropolis a subscription for raising an hospital for decayed actors and actresses, that our performers may constantly be cherished with the assurance that meagre want shall never grin at their royal heels, and that whenever age, accident, or the caprice of the town deprives those of their heroic callings, who fortunately have escaped violent deaths (for these representatives of heroes are sometimes known to imitate their originals, and, as the poet sings,

Ere nature bids them die,

Fate takes them early to the pitying sky)

they will be supported whilst alive; and, when the