The Spectator Volume I Part 102

No. 147. Sat.u.r.day, August 18, 1711. Steele.

'p.r.o.nuntiatio est Vocis et Vultus et Gestus moderatio c.u.m venustate.'

Tull.

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

The well Reading of the Common Prayer is of so great Importance, and so much neglected, that I take the Liberty to offer to your Consideration some Particulars on that Subject: And what more worthy your Observation than this? A thing so Publick, and of so high Consequence. It is indeed wonderful, that the frequent Exercise of it should not make the Performers of that Duty more expert in it. This Inability, as I conceive, proceeds from the little Care that is taken of their Reading, while Boys and at School, where when they are got into _Latin_, they are looked upon as above _English_, the Reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very little purpose, without any due Observations made to them of the proper Accent and Manner of Reading; by this means they have acquired such ill Habits as won't easily be removed. The only way that I know of to remedy this, is to propose some Person of great Ability that way as a Pattern for them; Example being most effectual to convince the Learned, as well as instruct the Ignorant.

You must know, Sir, I've been a constant Frequenter of the Service of the Church of _England_ for above these four Years last past, and 'till _Sunday_ was Seven-night never discovered, to so great a Degree, the Excellency of the Common-Prayer. When being at St. _James's Garlick-Hill_ Church, I heard the Service read so distinctly, so emphatically, and so fervently, that it was next to an Impossibility to be unattentive. My Eyes and my Thoughts could not wander as usual, but were confin'd to my Prayers: I then considered I addressed my self to the Almighty, and not to a beautiful Face. And when I reflected on my former Performances of that Duty, I found I had run it over as a matter of Form, in comparison to the Manner in which I then discharged it. My Mind was really affected, and fervent Wishes accompanied my Words. The Confession was read with such a resigned Humility, the Absolution with such a comfortable Authority, the Thanksgivings with such a Religious Joy, as made me feel those Affections of the Mind in a Manner I never did before. To remedy therefore the Grievance above complained of, I humbly propose, that this excellent Reader, [1] upon the next and every Annual a.s.sembly of the Clergy of _Sion-College_, and all other Conventions, should read Prayers before them. For then those that are afraid of stretching their Mouths, and spoiling their soft Voice, will learn to Read with Clearness, Loudness, and Strength.

Others that affect a rakish negligent Air by folding their Arms, and lolling on their Book, will be taught a decent Behaviour, and comely Erection of Body. Those that Read so fast as if impatient of their Work, may learn to speak deliberately. There is another sort of Persons whom I call Pindarick Readers, as being confined to no set measure; these p.r.o.nounce five or six Words with great Deliberation, and the five or six subsequent ones with as great Celerity: The first part of a Sentence with a very exalted Voice, and the latter part with a submissive one: Sometimes again with one sort of a Tone, and immediately after with a very different one. These Gentlemen will learn of my admired Reader an Evenness of Voice and Delivery, and all who are innocent of these Affectations, but read with such an Indifferency as if they did not understand the Language, may then be informed of the Art of Reading movingly and fervently, how to place the Emphasis, and give the proper Accent to each Word, and how to vary the Voice according to the Nature of the Sentence. There is certainly a very great Difference between the Reading a Prayer and a Gazette, which I beg of you to inform a Set of Readers, who affect, forsooth, a certain Gentleman-like Familiarity of Tone, and mend the Language as they go on, crying instead of Pardoneth and Absolveth, Pardons and Absolves. These are often pretty Cla.s.sical Scholars, and would think it an unpardonable Sin to read _Virgil_ or _Martial_ with so little Taste as they do Divine Service.

This Indifferency seems to me to arise from the Endeavour of avoiding the Imputation of Cant, and the false Notion of it. It will be proper therefore to trace the Original and Signification of this Word. Cant is, by some People, derived from one _Andrew Cant_, who, they say, was a Presbyterian Minister in some illiterate Part of _Scotland_, who by Exercise and Use had obtained the Faculty, _alias_ Gift, of Talking in the Pulpit in such a Dialect, that it's said he was understood by none but his own Congregation, and not by all of them. Since _Mas. Cant's_ time, it has been understood in a larger Sense, and signifies all sudden Exclamations, Whinings, unusual Tones, and in fine all Praying and Preaching, like the unlearned of the Presbyterians. But I hope a proper Elevation of Voice, a due Emphasis and Accent, are not to come within this Description. So that our Readers may still be as unlike the Presbyterians as they please. The Dissenters (I mean such as I have heard) do indeed elevate their Voices, but it is with sudden jumps from the lower to the higher part of them; and that with so little Sense or Skill, that their Elevation and Cadence is Bawling and Muttering. They make use of an Emphasis, but so improperly, that it is often placed on some very insignificant Particle, as upon _if_, or _and_. Now if these Improprieties have so great an Effect on the People, as we see they have, how great an Influence would the Service of our Church, containing the best Prayers that ever were composed, and that in Terms most affecting, most humble, and most expressive of our Wants, and Dependance on the Object of our Worship, dispos'd in most proper Order, and void of all Confusion; what Influence, I say, would these Prayers have, were they delivered with a due Emphasis, and apposite Rising and Variation of Voice, the Sentence concluded with a gentle Cadence, and, in a word, with such an Accent and Turn of Speech as is peculiar to Prayer?

As the matter of Worship is now managed, in Dissenting Congregations, you find insignificant Words and Phrases raised by a lively Vehemence; in our own Churches, the most exalted Sense depreciated, by a dispa.s.sionate Indolence. I remember to have heard Dr. _S_--_e_ [2] say in his Pulpit, of the Common-prayer, that, at least, it was as perfect as any thing of Human Inst.i.tution: If the Gentlemen who err in this kind would please to recollect the many Pleasantries they have read upon those who recite good Things with an ill Grace, they would go on to think that what in that Case is only Ridiculous, in themselves is Impious. But leaving this to their own Reflections, I shall conclude this Trouble with what _Caesar_ said upon the Irregularity of Tone in one who read before him, _Do you read or sing? If you sing, you sing very ill_. [3]

[Footnote 1: The Rec. Philip Stubbs, afterwards Archdeacon of St. Alban's.]

[Footnote 2: Smalridge?]

[Footnote 3:

Si legis cantas; si cantas, male cantas.

The word Cant is rather from 'cantare', as a chanting whine, than from the Andrew Cants, father and son, of Charles the Second's time.]

No. 148 Monday, August 20, 1711 Steele

'Exempta juvat spinis e pluribus una.'

Hor.

My Correspondents a.s.sure me that the Enormities which they lately complained of, and I published an Account of, are so far from being amended, that new Evils arise every Day to interrupt their Conversation, in Contempt of my Reproofs. My Friend who writes from the Coffee-house near the _Temple_, informs me that the Gentleman who constantly sings a Voluntary in spite of the whole Company, was more musical than ordinary after reading my Paper; and has not been contented with that, but has danced up to the Gla.s.s in the Middle of the Room, and practised Minuet-steps to his own Humming. The incorrigible Creature has gone still further, and in the open Coffee-house, with one Hand extended as leading a Lady in it, he has danced both _French_ and Country-Dances, and admonished his supposed Partner by Smiles and Nods to hold up her Head, and fall back, according to the respective Facings and Evolutions of the Dance. Before this Gentleman began this his Exercise, he was pleased to clear his Throat by coughing and spitting a full half Hour; and as soon as he struck up, he appealed to an Attorney's Clerk in the Room, whether he hit as he ought _Since you from Death have saved me?_ and then asked the young Fellow (pointing to a Chancery-Bill under his Arm) whether that was an Opera-Score he carried or not? Without staying for an Answer he fell into the Exercise Above-mentioned, and practised his Airs to the full House who were turned upon him, without the least Shame or Repentance for his former Transgressions.

I am to the last Degree at a Loss what to do with this young Fellow, except I declare him an Outlaw, and p.r.o.nounce it penal for any one to speak to him in the said House which he frequents, and direct that he be obliged to drink his Tea and Coffee without Sugar, and not receive from any Person whatsoever any thing above mere Necessaries.

As we in _England_ are a sober People, and generally inclined rather to a certain Bashfulness of Behaviour in Publick, it is amazing whence some Fellows come whom one meets with in this Town; they do not at all seem to be the Growth of our Island; the Pert, the Talkative, all such as have no Sense of the Observations of others, are certainly of foreign Extraction. As for my Part, I am as much surprised when I see a talkative _Englishman_, as I should be to see the _Indian_ Pine growing on one of our quick-set Hedges. Where these Creatures get Sun enough, to make them such lively Animals and dull Men, is above my Philosophy.

There are another Kind of Impertinents which a Man is perplexed with in mixed Company, and those are your loud Speakers: These treat Mankind as if we were all deaf; they do not express but declare themselves. Many of these are guilty of this Outrage out of Vanity, because they think all they say is well; or that they have their own Persons in such Veneration, that they believe nothing which concerns them can be insignificant to any Body else. For these Peoples sake, I have often lamented that we cannot close our Ears with as much ease as we can our Eyes: It is very uneasy that we must necessarily be under Persecution.

Next to these Bawlers, is a troublesome Creature who comes with the Air of your Friend and your Intimate, and that is your Whisperer. There is one of them at a Coffee-house which I my self frequent, who observing me to be a Man pretty well made for Secrets, gets by me, and with a Whisper tells me things which all the Town knows. It is no very hard matter to guess at the Source of this Impertinence, which is nothing else but a Method or Mechanick Art of being wise. You never see any frequent in it, whom you can suppose to have anything in the World to do. These Persons are worse than Bawlers, as much as a secret Enemy is more dangerous than a declared one. I wish this my Coffee-house Friend would take this for an Intimation, that I have not heard one Word he has told me for these several Years; whereas he now thinks me the most trusty Repository of his Secrets. The Whisperers have a pleasant way of ending the close Conversation, with saying aloud, _Do not you think so?_ Then whisper again, and then aloud, _but you know that Person;_ then whisper again.

The thing would be well enough, if they whisper'd to keep the Folly of what they say among Friends; but alas, they do it to preserve the Importance of their Thoughts. I am sure I could name you more than one Person whom no Man living ever heard talk upon any Subject in Nature, or ever saw in his whole Life with a Book in his Hand, that I know not how can whisper something like Knowledge of what has and does pa.s.s in the World; which you would think he learned from some familiar Spirit that did not think him worthy to receive the whole Story. But in truth Whisperers deal only in half Accounts of what they entertain you with. A great Help to their Discourse is, 'That the Town says, and People begin to talk very freely, and they had it from Persons too considerable to be named, what they will tell you when things are riper.' My Friend has winked upon me any Day since I came to Town last, and has communicated to me as a Secret, that he designed in a very short Time to tell me a Secret; but I shall know what he means, he now a.s.sures me, in less than a Fortnight's Time.

But I must not omit the dearer Part of Mankind, I mean the Ladies, to take up a whole Paper upon Grievances which concern the Men only; but shall humbly propose, that we change Fools for an Experiment only. A certain Set of Ladies complain they are frequently perplexed with a Visitant who affects to be wiser than they are; which Character he hopes to preserve by an obstinate Gravity, and great Guard against discovering his Opinion upon any Occasion whatsoever. A painful Silence has. .h.i.therto gained him no further Advantage, than that as he might, if he had behaved himself with Freedom, been excepted against but as to this and that Particular, he now offends in the whole. To relieve these Ladies, my good Friends and Correspondents, I shall exchange my dancing Outlaw for their dumb Visitant, and a.s.sign the silent Gentleman all the Haunts of the Dancer; in order to which, I have sent them by the Penny-post the following Letters for their Conduct in their new Conversations.

_SIR_,

I have, you may be sure, heard of your Irregularities without regard to my Observations upon you; but shall not treat you with so much Rigour as you deserve. If you will give yourself the Trouble to repair to the Place mentioned in the Postscript to this Letter at Seven this Evening, you will be conducted into a s.p.a.cious Room well-lighted, where there are Ladies and Musick. You will see a young Lady laughing next the Window to the Street; you may take her out, for she loves you as well as she does any Man, tho' she never saw you before. She never thought in her Life, any more than your self. She will not be surprised when you accost her, nor concerned when you leave her.

Hasten from a Place where you are laughed at, to one where you will be admired. You are of no Consequence, therefore go where you will be welcome for being so.

_Your most Humble Servant_.'

_SIR_,

'The Ladies whom you visit, think a wise Man the most impertinent Creature living, therefore you cannot be offended that they are displeased with you. Why will you take pains to appear wise, where you would not be the more esteemed for being really so? Come to us; forget the Gigglers; and let your Inclination go along with you whether you speak or are silent; and let all such Women as are in a Clan or Sisterhood, go their own way; there is no Room for you in that Company who are of the common Taste of the s.e.x.'

_For Women born to be controll'd Stoop to the forward and the bold; Affect the haughty, and the proud, The gay, the frolick, and the loud._ [1]

T.

[Footnote 1: Waller 'Of Love.']