[397]: Had I followed monsieur Bossu's method in my first paper on Milton, I should have dated the action of Paradise lost from the beginning of Raphael's speech in this book, etc.
(Spectator, no 327.)
[398]: Spectator, 39, 40, 58.
[399]: I looked with as much pleasure upon this little party-coloured assembly as upon a bed of tulips and did not know at first whether it might not be an embassy of Indian queens; but upon my going about in the pit, and taking them in front, I was immediately undeceived and saw so much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be English. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads could not be the growth of any other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me from observing any farther the colour of their hoods, though I could easily perceive by that unspeakable satisfaction which appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken up in those pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads.
(Spectator, no 265.)
[400]: They should first reflect on the great sufferings and persecutions to which they expose themselves by the obstinacy of their behaviour. They lose their elections in every club where they are set up for toasts. They are obliged by their principle to stick a patch on the most unbecoming side of their foreheads. They forego the advantage of the birthday suits.... They receive no benefit from the army, and are never the better for all the young fellows that wear hats and feathers. They are forced to live in the country and feed their chickens at the same time that they might show themselves at court and appear in brocade, if they behaved themselves well. In short what must go to the heart of every fine woman, they throw themselves quite out of the fashion.... A man is startled when he sees a pretty bosom heaving with such party-rage, as is disagreeable even in that sex, which is of a more coarse and rugged make.—And yet such is our misfortune, that we sometimes see a pair of stays ready to burst with sedition, and hear the most masculine passions exprest in the sweetest voices.... Where a great number of flowers grow, the ground at distance seems entirely covered with them, and we must walk into it before we can distinguish the several weeds that spring up in such a beautiful mass of colours.
(Freeholder, nos 4 et 26.)
[401]: There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than signior Nicolini's combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain.... The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who being a fellow of testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done.... The second lion was a taylor by trade who belonged to the play-house, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part; in so much that after a short modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian tricks. It is said indeed that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-coloured doublet. But this was only to make work for himself, in his private character of a tailor.... The acting lion at present is, as, I am informed, a country gentleman who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He says very handsomely in his own excuse that he does not act for gain; that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it; and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking.... This gentleman's temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric, that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man.... In the mean time, I have related this combat of the lion to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain.
(Spectator, no 13.)
[402]: The pineal gland, which many of our modern philosophers suppose to be the seat of the soul, smelt very strong of essence and orange-flower, and was encompassed with a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors, which were imperceptible to the naked eye; in so much that the soul, if there had been any here, must have been always taken up in contemplating her own beauties. We observed a large antrum or cavity in the sinciput that was filled with ribbonds, lace and embroidery.... We did not find any thing very remarkable in the eye, saving only that the musculi amatorii, or as we may translate it into English, the ogling muscles, were very much worn, and decayed with use; whereas on the contrary the elevator or the muscle which turns the eye towards heaven, did not appear to have been used at all.