call is originally a piece of English music. Its resemblance to the voice of some of our British songsters, as well as the use of it, which is peculiar to our nation, confirms me in this opinion. It has at least received great improvements among us, whether we consider the instrument itself, or those several quavers and graces which are thrown into the playing of it. Every one might be sensible of this who heard that remarkable overgrown catcall which was placed in the centre of the pit, and presided over all the rest at the celebrated performance lately exhibited in Drury Lane.

Having said thus much concerning the original of the catcall, we are in the next place to consider the use of it. The catcall exerts itself to most advantage in the British theatre: it very much improves the sound of nonsense, and often goes along with the voice of the actor who pronounces it, as the violin or harpsichord accompanies the Italian recitativo.

It has often supplied the place of the ancient chorus, in the words of Mr. * * *. In short, a bad poet has as great an antipathy to a catcall as many people have to a real cat.

Mr. Collier, in his ingenious essay upon music,1 has the following passage:

'I believe 'tis possible to invent an instrument that shall have a quite contrary effect to those martial ones now in use. An instrument that shall sink the spirits, and shake the nerves, and curdle the blood, and inspire despair, and cowardice and consternation, at a surprising rate. 'Tis probable the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together

1 Essays upon several Moral Subjects,' by Jeremy Collier (1732), Part ii. p. 30.

with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and compounded, might go a great way

in this invention. Whether such anti-music as this might not be of service in a camp, I shall leave to the military men to consider.'

What this learned gentleman supposes in speculation, I have known actually verified in practice. The catcall has struck a damp into generals, and frighted heroes off the stage. At the first sound of it I have seen a crowned head tremble, and a princess fall into fits. The humorous lieutenant himself could not stand it; nay, I am told that even Almanzor1 looked like a mouse, and trembled at the voice of this terrifying instrument.

As it is of a dramatic nature, and peculiarly appropriated to the stage, I can by no means approve the thought of that angry lover, who, after an unsuccessful pursuit of some years, took leave of his mistress in a serenade of catcalls.

I must conclude this paper with the account I have lately received of an ingenious artist, who has long studied this instrument, and is very well versed in all the rules of the drama. He teaches to play on it by book, and to express by it the whole art of criticism. He has his base and his treble catcall; the former for tragedy, the latter for comedy; only in tragi-comedies they may both play together in concert. He has a particular squeak to denote the violation of each of the unities, and has different sounds to show whether he aims at the poet or the player. In short, he teaches the smut-note, the fustian-note, the stupid-note, and has composed a

1 A character in Dryden's Conquest of Granada.'

kind of air that may serve as an act tune to an incorrigible play, and which takes in the whole compass of the catcall.1

No. 362. Friday, April 25, 1712

L.

[STEELE.

Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus.-HOR., 1 Ep. xix. 6.

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

SEVE

TEMPLE, April 24.

EVERAL of my friends were this morning got together over a dish of tea in very good health, though we had celebrated yesterday 2 with more glasses than we could have dispensed with, had we not been beholden to Brooke and Hellier.3 In gratitude, therefore, to those good citizens, I am, in the name of the company, to accuse you of great negligence in overlooking their merit who have imported true and generous wine, and taken care that it should not be adulterated by the retailers before it comes to the tables of private

1 The following sentence here appears in the folio issue : Not being yet determined with whose name to fill up the gap in this dissertation which is marked with asterisks, I shall defer it till this paper appears with others in a volume.'

2 April 23 was Queen Anne's coronation day.

3 See No. 264. Thomas Brooke and John Hellier, wine merchants, of Basing Lane, Bread Street, often advertised in the Spectator. They had vaults in various places, for the better accommodation of the whole town.' In No. 326 there was advertised, 'Brooke and Hellier. A Satire. Price 3d.;' and another attack was called The Quack Vintners; or, a Satire against Bad Wine,' 1712. The firm claimed to have paid in one year 2500 Customs duties (The Case of Messieurs Brooke and Hellier,' 1710); but in 1712 they were in difficulties, and dissolved partnership. Brooke afterwards started in business by himself.

families or the clubs of honest fellows. I cannot imagine how a Spectator can be supposed to do his duty without frequent resumption of such subjects as concern our health, the first thing to be regarded if we have a mind to relish anything else. It would therefore very well become your spectatorial vigilance to give it in orders to your officer for inspecting signs, that in his march he would look into the itinerants who deal in provisions, and inquire where they buy their several wares. Ever since the de

3

cease of Cully1 Mully Puff2 of agreeable and noisy memory, I cannot say I have observed anything sold in carts, or carried by horse or ass, or in fine in any moving market, which is not perished or putrified; witness the wheelbarrows of rotten raisins, almonds, figs, and currants, which you see vended by a merchant dressed in a second-hand suit of a foot soldier. You should consider that a child may be poisoned for the worth of a farthing; but except his poor parents send to one certain doctor in town, they can have no advice for him under a guinea. When poisons are thus cheap and medicines thus dear, how can you be negligent in inspecting what we eat and drink, or take no notice of such as the abovementioned citizens who have been so serviceable to us of late in that particular? It was a custom among the old Romans to do him particular honours who had saved the life of a citizen; how much more does the world owe to those who prevent the death

16 'Mully' (folio).

2 Puff whose portrait is to be found in the London Cries' (see No. 251) in Granger's Biographical History—was a little man who was barely able to carry on his head his basket of pastry.

3 A doctor who advertised that he attended patients at from one shilling to half-a-crown, according to the distance.

of multitudes? As these men deserve well of your office, so such as act to the detriment of our health, you ought to represent to themselves and their fellow-subjects in the colours which they deserve to wear. I think it would be for the public good that all who vend wines should be under oaths in that behalf. The chairman at a quarter sessions should inform the country, that the vintner who mixes wine to his customers, shall (upon proof that the drinker thereof died within a year and a day after taking it) be deemed guilty of wilful murder; and the jury shall be instructed to inquire and present such delinquents accordingly. It is no mitigation of the crime, nor will it be conceived that it can be brought in chance-medley or manslaughter, upon proof that it shall appear wine joined to wine, or right Herefordshire poured into port-o-port; but his selling it for one thing knowing it to be another, must justly bear the foresaid guilt of wilful murder: for that he, the said vintner, did an unlawful act willingly in the false mixture; and is therefore with equity liable to all the pains to which a man would be if it were proved he designed only to run a man through the arm whom he whipped through the lungs. This is my third year at the Temple, and this is or should be law. An ill intention well proved should meet with no alleviation because it outran itself. There cannot be too great severity used against the injustice as well as cruelty of those who play with men's lives by preparing liquors whose nature, for aught they know, may be noxious when mixed, though innocent when apart and Brooke and Hellier, who have insured our safety at our meals, and driven jealousy from our cups in conversation, deserve the custom and thanks of the