Your most obedient,
humble Servant,
T. B.
I forgot to tell you, that Albina,
who has six Votaries in this
Club, is one of your Readers.’
[Footnote 1: To this number of the Spectator
was added in the original daily issue an announcement
of six places at which were to be sold ‘Compleat
Setts of this Paper for the Month of March.’]
* * * *
*
No. 31. Thursday, April 5, 1711.
Addison.
‘Sit mihi
fas audita loqui!’
Vir.
Last Night, upon my going into a Coffee-House not
far from the Hay-Market Theatre, I diverted
my self for above half an Hour with overhearing the
Discourse of one, who, by the Shabbiness of his Dress,
the Extravagance of his Conceptions, and the Hurry
of his Speech, I discovered to be of that Species
who are generally distinguished by the Title of Projectors.
This Gentleman, for I found he was treated as such
by his Audience, was entertaining a whole Table of
Listners with the Project of an Opera, which he told
us had not cost him above two or three Mornings in
the Contrivance, and which he was ready to put in
Execution, provided he might find his Account in it.
He said, that he had observed the great Trouble and
Inconvenience which Ladies were at, in travelling
up and down to the several Shows that are exhibited
in different Quarters of the Town. The dancing
Monkies are in one place; the Puppet-Show in another;
the Opera in a third; not to mention the Lions, that
are almost a whole Day’s Journey from the Politer
Part of the Town. By this means People of Figure
are forced to lose half the Winter after their coming
to Town, before they have seen all the strange Sights
about it. In order to remedy this great Inconvenience,
our Projector drew out of his Pocket the Scheme of
an Opera, Entitled, The Expedition of Alexander
the Great; in which he had disposed of all the
remarkable Shows about Town, among the Scenes and Decorations
of his Piece. The Thought, he confessed, was
not originally his own, but that he had taken the
Hint of it from several Performances which he had seen
upon our Stage: In one of which there was a Rary-Show;
in another, a Ladder-dance; and in others a Posture-man,
a moving Picture, with many Curiosities of the like
nature.
This Expedition of Alexander opens with his
consulting the oracle at Delphos, in which
the dumb Conjuror, who has been visited by so many
Persons of Quality of late Years, is to be introduced
as telling him his Fortune; At the same time Clench
of Barnet is represented in another Corner
of the Temple, as ringing the Bells of Delphos,
for joy of his arrival. The Tent of Darius
is to be Peopled by the Ingenious Mrs. Salmon,
[1] where Alexander is to fall in Love with a Piece
