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.

L.

[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