Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.
'A third sign of a swain is, that something of religion, and even superstition, is part of his character. For we find that those who have lived easy lives in the country, and contemplate the works of nature, live in the greatest awe of their author; nor doth this humour prevail less now than of old. Our peasants as sincerely believe the tales of goblins and fairies as the heathens those of fawns, nymphs, and satyrs. Hence we find the works of Virgil and Theocritus sprinkled with left-handed ravens, blasted oaks, witchcrafts, evil eyes, and the like. And I observe with great pleasure, that our English author of the pastorals I have quoted hath practised this secret with admirable judgment.'
No. 29. The 'Guardian.'—April 14, 1713.
Ride si sapis—Mart. Epig.
Laugh if you're wise.
'In order to look into any person's temper I generally make my first observation upon his laugh; whether he is easily moved, and what are the passages which throw him into that agreeable kind of convulsion. People are never so unguarded as when they are pleased; and laughter being a visible symptom of some inward satisfaction, it is then, if ever, we may believe the face. It may be remarked in general under this head, that the laugh of men of wit is, for the most part, but a faint, constrained kind of half laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.
'As the playhouse affords us the most occasions of observing upon the behaviour of the face, it may be useful (for the direction of those who would be critics this way) to remark, that the virgin ladies usually dispose themselves in front of the boxes; the young married women compose the second row; while the rear is generally made up of mothers of long standing, undesigning maids, and contented widows. Whoever will cast his eye upon them under this view, during the representation of a play, will find me so far in the right that a double entendre strikes the first row into an affected gravity, or careless indolence; the second will venture at a smile; but the third take the conceit entirely, and express their mirth in a downright laugh.
'When I descend to particulars, I find the reserved prude will relapse into a smile at the extravagant freedoms of the coquette, the coquette in her turn laughs at the starchness and awkward affectation of the prude; the man of letters is tickled with the vanity and ignorance of the fop, and the fop confesses his ridicule at the unpoliteness of the pedant.
'I fancy we may range the several kinds of laughers under the following heads:—
| The Dimplers, | The Laughers, |
| The Smilers, | The Grinners, |
| The Horse-laughers. | |