I desire this paper may be read with more than ordinary attention, at all tea-tables within the cities of London and Westminster.

BUDGELL.

X.

N° 396. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1712.

Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton'.

HAVING a great deal of business upon my hands at present, I shall beg the reader's leave to present him with a letter that I received about half a year ago from a gentleman at Cambridge, who stiles himself Peter de Quir2. I have kept it by me some months; and, though I did not know at first what to make of it, upon my reading it over very frequently I have at last discovered several conceits in it: I would not therefore have my reader discouraged if he does not take them at the first perusal.

TO THE SPECTATOR.

From St. John's-college, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712.

SIR,

THE monopoly of puns in this university has been an immemorial privilege of the Johnians3; and we

A barbarous verse, invented by the logicians.

2 The writer of this letter was the noted orator Henley. 3 The students of St. John's-college. See the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxv.

can't help resenting the late invasion of our ancient right as to that particular, by a little pretender to clenching in a neighbouring college, who in an application to you by way of letter, awhile ago, stiled himself Philobrune +. Dear Sir, as you are by character a profest well-wisher to speculation, you will excuse a remark which this gentleman's passion for the brunette has suggested to a brother theorist: it is an offer towards a mechanical account of his lapse to punning, for he belongs to a set of mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon mastery in the more humane and polite part of letters.

'A conquest by one of this species of females gives a very odd turn to the intellectuals of the captivated person, and very different from that way of thinking which a triumph from the eyes of another, more emphatically of the fair sex, does generally occasion. It fills the imagination with an assemblage of such ideas and pictures as are hardly any thing but shade, such as night, the devil, &c. These portraitures very near overpower the light of the understanding, almost benight the faculties, and give that melancholy tincture to the most sanguine complexion, which this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a brown-study, and is usually attended with worse consequences, in case of a repulse. During this twilight of intellects, the patient is extremely apt, as love is the most witty passion in nature, to offer at some pert sallies now and then, by way of flourish, upon the amiable enchantress, and unfortunately stumbles upon that mongrel miscreated (to speak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vulgarly termed the pun. It would not be much amiss to consult Dr. T-W- (who is certainly a

+ The second letter in No 286.

very able projector, and whose system of divinity and spiritual mechanics obtains very much among the better part of our undergraduates) whether a general inter-marriage, enjoined by parliament, between this sisterhood of the olive-beauties, and the fraternity of the people called quakers, would not be a very ser viceable expedient, and abate that overflow of light which shines within them so powerfully, that it dazzles their eyes, and dances them into a thousand vagaries of error and enthusiasm. These reflections may impart some light towards a discovery of the origin of punning among us, and the foundation of its prevailing so long in this famous body. It is notorious, from the instance under consideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the use of brown jugs, muddy belch, and the fumes of a certain memorable place of rendezvous with us at meals, known by the name of Staincoat Hole: for the atmosphere of the kitchen, like the tail of a comet, predominates least about the fire, but resides behind and fills the fragrant receptacle above mentioned. Besides, it is farther observable, that the delicate spirits among us, who declare against these nauseous proceedings, sip tea, and put up for critic and amour, profess likewise an equal abhorrence for punning, the ancient innocent diversion of this society. After all, Sir, though it may appear something absurd, that I seem to approach you with the air of an advocate for punning, (you who have justified your censures of the practice in a set dissertation upon that subject ") yet I am confident you will think it abundantly atoned for by observing, that this humbler exercise may be as instrumental in diverting us from any innovating schemes

5 See N° 61.

and hypotheses in wit, as dwelling upon honest orthodox logic would be in securing us from heresy in religion. Had Mr. Wn's researches been confined within the bounds of Ramus or Crackenthorp, that learned newsmonger might have acquiesced in what the holy oracles pronounced upon the deluge, like other Christians; and had the surprising Mr. Ly7 7 been content with the employment of refining upon Shakspeare's points and quibbles (for which he must be allowed to have a superlative genius), and now and then penning a catch or a ditty, instead of inditing odes and sonnets, the gentlemen of the bon goût in the pit would never have been put to all that grimace in damning the frippery of state, the poverty and languor of thought, the unnatural wit, and inartificial structure of his dramas.

7 Perhaps John Lacy, who altered Shakspeare's play of The Taming of the Shrew. He was author of three other comedies, and a player who pleased Cha. II. so much, that he had his picture painted in three of his best characters, viz. Teague, in The Committee; Scruple, in The Cheats; and Galliard, in The Variety; which picture is still preserved in Windsor-castle.

N° 397. THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1712.

Fecerat

-Dolor ipse disertum

OVID. Metam. 1. xiii. ver. 228.

For grief inspir'd me then with eloquence.

DRYDEN.

As the Stoic philosophers discard all passions in general, they will not allow a wise man so much as to pity the afflictions of another. If thou seest thy friend in trouble,' says Epictetus, thou mayest put on a look of sorrow, and condole with him, but take care that thy sorrow be not real.' The more rigid of this sect would not comply so far as to shew even such an outward appearance of grief; but when one told them of any calamity that had befallen even the nearest of their acquaintance, would immediately reply, What is that to me?' If you aggravated the circumstances of the affliction, and shewed how one misfortune was followed by another, the answer was still, All this may be true, but what is it to me?'

For my own part, I am of opinion, compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind as that in which the Stoics placed their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow. In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, as well as generous sympathy, that knits mankind together, and blends them in the same common lot.