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ESSAY On the SPLEEN.

THE HE fpleen is oftentimes nothing but an exceptious, nice temper, which takes offence at every little disappointment. A tincture of conceit will make a man fubject to this diftemper; those who over-value their pretenfions, are apt, upon every little occafion, to think they are ill-used. That quality fhould grow thus cheap, and merit be thus over-looked! Who could have imagined people fo ftrangely ftupid, and unacknowledging? Well!-I'll lock up my face, and draw in my good humour, and do myself the juftice of a private refentment. These expoftulations in words would be ridiculous, and therefore they are fuppreffed, but they seem to be the thoughts of fome perfons. You need not provoke their spirits by outrages, either in fame or fortune, or by any injury of a greater fize. A careless gefture, a word, a look, is enough to difconcert them. Such a fuppofed neglect fpreads a gloominefs on their humour, and makes them grow fullen and unconverfable; and when they are disturbed only by their own weakness, and doing penance for their vanity, they lay the fault upon their conftitution.

It is commonly faid, the fpleen is a wife difeafe; which, I believe, makes fome people fond of catching it. It is poffible it may be the only fymptom of fenfe they have about them. But if a man can thew his understanding no better way, than by troubling himself and the company, let him even pretend to it no longer, but rather make it his business to be a fool. However, it must be granted, that those fits of chagrin proceed fometimes from natural caufes. The fumes of indigeftion, infenfible abatements of health, fudden changes of weather, affect the brain, though they make no fenfible impreffion elfewhere. This disturbs the imagination, and gives a new and melancholy complexion to the appearance of things. Wife thinking, and good-humour, unlefs people look to it, are precarious advantages; a cloud is enough to overcaft them. Some men can scarcely talk fenfe, unlefs the fun fhines out. Understanding requires a fine climate, as well as plants. When outward cafes concur, the idle, the anxious, and the unfortunate, are fooneft seized with this infection. At fuch a time a man fhould awaken himself, and immediately ftrike off into bufinefs, or innocent amusement. Next to religion, there is nothing like a vigorous mind. Refolution and fpirit will quickly repel the malignity, and difcufs the humour. Now every one is bound in honour, as well as intereft, to do his beft. For to lie at the command of so many little accidents, can be no pleafing difcovery. To lofe.the comforts of life in a few D d

vapours,

210

ESSAY ON THE SPLEEN.

vapours, and to be fmoked and fmothered out of one's reafon, are far from circumstances of credit. What wife man would bring the night-mare upon his fancy; and conjure up apparitions to frighten himself? Who would double his misfortunes, and fpoil the habit of his body and his mind, if he could help it? The evils of neceffity are numerous enough, without being multiplied by thofe of choice.

And as the spleen has great inconveniences, fo the pretence of it is an handsome cover for many imperfections. It often hides a man's temper and condition from breaking out to disadvantage. For the purpose, one man is preffed with unufual poverty, and -looks, as he has reafon, fomewhat oddly upon it. What makes this alteration? Why, his blood is overrun with melancholy; whereas, if you examine farther, you will find the feat of his -diftemper lies in the pocket. Another is feverely mortified by fome great difappointment; but this must not be owned: no; the man is impregnable, he has his mind in a ftring; but nobody can command a conftitution. He that has difpirited himself by a debauch, drunk away his good-humour, and it may be, raised his confcience a little upon him, has this pretence to guard against cenfure: a civil gueffer will believe him hypochondriacal, and all is well. If he is filent, and unentertaining to a vifitor, the fpleen is his excufe, and conveys his pride or difaffection out of fight. In short, the spleen does a great deal of fervice in converfation; it makes ill-nature pafs for ill health, dulnefs for gravity, and illnefs for refervedness.

4

The way to prevent this distemper, and cure it when it lies in the mind, is not to be over-expecting; if we take it amifs that our acquaintance are not always ready to folicit our business, to ftudy our inclination, and compliment our humour, we are likely to have work enough. To look for fo obliging a world as this comes to, is to mifcalculate extremely. When all is done, people will love themselves molt. Therefore we fhould not be furprized when we fee them prefer their own intereft, break a jest at our coft, or raise themselves by our depreffion. It is poffible they may only make reprifals, and return our own ufage upon us; however, it is not good to build too much upon the fairness of others more efpecially thofe who would be eafy, muft not be nice in trivial matters; not infift upon punctualities in behaviour, nor be afflicted at the omiffion of a little ceremony. All people do not love to be tied down to forms, nor to walk in trammels. If a man values regard, he needs not afk the multitude; he may give it himself, if he pleafes. Thefe difputes diforder none but weak fantastic minds, who have taken a furfeit of profperity:

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ANECDOTES OF EDWARD ALLEYN..

211

and fince God has fent them no croffes, they are refolved to make fome out of their own indifcretion.

To conclude: He that would live at eafe, fhould put the best conftruction on business and converfation. He should not fuppose there was malice or contempt meant him in every action he does not understand. To interpret up to this rigour, will make him often mistaken, and always upon the fret, and is the way! neither to be just to others, nor kind to himself.

W. F.

ANECDOTES of EDWARD ALLEYN,

A celebrated Player in the Fifteenth Century.

HIS celebrated English player in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, and founder of the college at Dulwich in Surry, was born in London, in the parish of St. Botolph, September 1, 1566, as appears from a memorandum of his own writing. Dr. Fuller fays, that he was bred a stageplayer; and that his father would have given him a liberal education, but that he was averfe to a serious course of life. He was however, a youth of an excellent capacity, a chearful temper, a tenacious memory, a fweet elocution, and in his perfon of a ftately port and afpect; all which advantages might well induce a young man to take the theatrical profeffion. By feveral authorities we find he must have been on the ftage fome time before, 1592; for at this time he was in high favour with the town, and greatly applauded by the best judges, particularly by Ben Jonfon..

It may appear furprizing, how one of Mr. Alleyn's profeffion. fhould be enabled to erect fuch an edifice as Dulwich college, and liberally endow it for the maintenance of fo many perfons. But, it must be obferved, that he had fome paternal fortune, which,: though small, might lay a foundation for his future affluence; and it is to be prefumed that the profits he received from acting, to one of his provident and managing difpofition, and one who by his excellence in playing drew after him fuch crowds of fpec tators, must have confiderably improved his fortune; befides, he, was not only an actor, but master of a playhouse, built at his, own expence, by which he is faid to have amaffed confiderable. wealth. He was alfo keeper of the king's wild beafts, or master of the royal bear-garden, which was frequented by vaft crowds of fpectators; and the profits arifing from these sports are said to have amounted to five hundred pounds per annum. He was thrice married; and the portions of his two first wives, they leav

DJ 2

ing

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ANECDOTES OF EDWARD ALLEYN.

ing him no iffue to inherit, might probably contribute to this be nefaction. Such kind of donations have been frequently thought to proceed more from vanity and oftentation than real piety; but this of Mr. Alleyn has been afcribed to a very fingular caufe, for the devil has been faid to be the first promoter of it. Mr. Aubrey mentions a tradition, " that Mr. Alleyn playing a demon with fix others, in one of Shakespear's plays, was, in the midst of the play, furprized by an apparition of the devil, which fo worked on his fancy, that he made a vow, which he performed by building Dulwich college." He began the foundation of this college under the direction of Inigo Jones, in 1614; and the buildings, gardens, &c. were finished in 1617, in which he is faid to have expended about 10,000l. After the college was built, he met with fome difficulty in obtaining a charter for fettling his lands in mortmain; for he proposed to endow it with 8000l. per annum, for the maintenance of one mafter, one warden, and four fellows, three whereof were to be clergymen, and the fourth a skilful organist; alfo fix poor men, and as many women, besides twelve poor boys, to be educated till the age of fourteen or fixteen, and then put out to fome trade or calling. The obftruction he met with, arofe from the Lord Chancellor Bacon, who wifhed King James to fettle part of thofe lands for the support of two academical lectures; and he wrote a letter to the Marquis of Buckingham, dated Auguft 18, 1618, intreating him to ufe his. intereft with his Majefty for that purpose. Mr. Alleyn's folicitation was however at laft complied with, and he obtained the royal licence, giving him full power to lay his foundation, by his Majefty's letters patent, bearing date the 21ft of June, 1619; by virtue whereof he did, in the chapel of the faid new hofpital at Dulwich, called "The College of God's Gift," on the 13th of September following, publicly read and published a quadripartite writing in parchment, whereby he created and established the faid college; he then fubfcribed it with his name, and fixed his feal to feveral parts thereof, in prefence of feveral honourable perfons, and ordered copies of the writings to four different parishes. He was himself the first master of his college, so that to make ofe of the woids of Mr. Haywood, one of his contemporaries, "He was fo mingled with humility and charity, that he became his own penfioner, humbly fubmitting himself to that proportion of diet and cloaths which he had beltowed on others." We have no reason to think he ever repented of this diftribution of his fubstance, but on the contrary, that he was entirely fatisfied, as appears from the following memorial in his own writing, found amongst his papers: "May 26, 1620, my wife and I acknowledged the fine at the common-pleas bar, of all our lands to the

college :

ON LAUNCHING INTO LIFE.

213

college: bleffed be God that he has given us life to do it." His wife died in the year 1623; and about two years afterwards he married Conftance Kinchtoe, who furvived him, and received remarkable proofs of his affection, if at least we may judge of it by his will, wherein he left her confiderably. He died Nov. 25, 1626, in the 61st year of his age, and was buried in the chapel of his new college.

On the DANGER of LAUNCHING TOO EARLY into LIFE.

THER

HERE is a warm opinion among the generality of young fellows, when they enter the world upon their own bottom, as it is commercially termed, that they may fafely commence a temporary connection with any agreeable woman, till they fee the all-accomplished fair who is to fix them for life, and till they think proper, from mere men of the town, to domesticate into prudent masters of families. This opinion is fo univerfally received, that one of the first things a ftripling of condition does up on his arrival at independence, is to look out for fome amiable unfortunate, who has been undone by her credulity, and is reduced to the dreadful neceffity of gleaning a livelihood from the charms which originally plunged her in deftruction: with a wo man of this ftamp, our unreflecting adventurer ufually engages himself, and feeks for nothing more than the external attractions of her perfon, and the appearance of fidelity, during the continu ance of their intercourfe. Such an attachment he judges more fenfible than an unlimited round of vifits from commoner to commoner, where his health may not only be endangered, but his character diminished, and plumes himfelf exceedingly upon his dif cretion in adopting fo fober a fcheme of fenfuality. He fancies, as the circumftance of mind is wholly out of the case, that he can caft his mistress off when he pleafes; he never reflects that the may gradually worm herfelf into his affection, and, from an ob ject of occafional defire, become an effential requifite to his hap→ pinefs; he does not reflect on confequences, ftill more natural, and still more alarming: he does not-but my ftory, Sir, will be a better elucidation than my animadverfion; take it, therefore, unembellished as it runs, and recommend it to the serious peru fal of every libertine in the extenfive circle of your readers.

I am, Sir, a man of title, fortune, and family, and entered the great world with as many advantages perhaps as most young people of diftinction; having a large ellate at my command, and

estate