hear a Dramatical Performance written in a Language
which they did not understand: That Chairs
and Flower-pots were introduced as Actors upon the
British Stage: That a promiscuous Assembly
of Men and Women were allowed to meet at Midnight
in Masques within the Verge of the Court; with many
Improbabilities of the like Nature. We must
therefore, in these and the like Cases, suppose
that these remote Hints and Allusions aimed at some
certain Follies which were then in Vogue, and which
at present we have not any Notion of. We may
guess by several Passages in the Speculations,
that there were Writers who endeavoured to detract
from the Works of this Author; but as nothing of
this nature is come down to us, we cannot guess
at any Objections that could be made to his Paper.
If we consider his Style with that Indulgence which
we must shew to old English Writers, or if
we look into the Variety of his Subjects, with those
several Critical Dissertations, Moral Reflections,
The following Part of the Paragraph is so much to
my Advantage, and beyond any thing I can pretend to,
that I hope my Reader will excuse me for not inserting
it.
[Footnote 1: Swift.]
[Footnote 2: In his ‘Principia’,
published 1687, Newton says this to show that the
nuclei of Comets must consist of solid matter.]
[Footnote 3: a]
[Footnote 4: a whole]
* * * *
*
No. 102. Wednesday, June 27, 1711.
Addison.
’...
Lusus animo debent aliquando dari,
Ad cogitandum
melior ut redeat sibi.’
Phaedr.
I do not know whether to call the following Letter
a Satyr upon Coquets, or a Representation of their
several fantastical Accomplishments, or what other
Title to give it; but as it is I shall communicate
it to the Publick. It will sufficiently explain
its own Intentions, so that I shall give it my Reader
at Length, without either Preface or Postscript.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
’Women are armed with Fans as Men
with Swords, and sometimes do more Execution with
them. To the end therefore that Ladies may be
entire Mistresses of the Weapon which they bear,
I have erected an Academy for the training up of
young Women in the Exercise of the Fan, according
to the most fashionable Airs and Motions that are now
practis’d at Court. The Ladies who carry
Fans under me are drawn up twice a-day in my great
Hall, where they are instructed in the Use of their
Arms, and exercised by the following Words of
Command,
Handle your Fans, Unfurl your
fans. Discharge your Fans, Ground your
Fans, Recover your Fans, Flutter your Fans.
By the right Observation of these few
plain Words of Command, a Woman of a tolerable Genius,
[who [1]] will apply herself diligently to her Exercise
